A Carolina Hurricanes blog with occasional news about the rest of the NHL.

Monday, August 07, 2006

Sabres done with arbitration, Mair "wins"

On Sunday, the Sabres announced that Adam Mair has been awarded a one year deal worth $675k. This, frankly, came as a surprise to me. Mair tallied 7 points (2/5) in 40 games during the 05-06 season while earning the league minimum $450k. I figured his raise would be miniscule at best. This was the last of their arbitration hearings, and their clock is running. They will have until sometime Tuesday afternoon to decide whether to pay JP Dumont $2.9M or walk away.

Apparently, they don't have the option of walking away from Mair. According to this TSN article, the Sabres are obligated to honor the contract. It suggests a provision in the CBA that forces a club to accept an arbitration result if the contract is for less than $1.4M.

I don't understand this. The Bruins were allowed to walk away from David Tanabe and his $1.275M arbitration ruling. UPDATE!!!! Thanks to some astute work after wondering the same thing, Kevin from BFLOBLOG cleared it up. That $1.4M number was incorrectly reported in more than one place. The error probably originated with the Associated Press. The actual number should be $1,042,173. In case you're wondering... no.
$1,042,173 USD ≠ $1,400,000 CAD.
Nice work digging through the CBA, Kevin!

Incidentally, for about half a second, I thought the Canes were going to pick Tanabe up. These days, they're picking up all sorts of former Canes. Tanabe, in a six degrees type of way, was really important to the success of the 2005-06 Canes. He was drafted by the Canes in 1999. In 2003, he was traded to Phoenix for Daniil Markov in a deal that included spare parts from both sides. The next season, Markov was traded to the Flyers straight up for Justin Williams. Viva, as frequent readers of this page know, was a key member of the Canes and had a great playoff season, including the empty net security goal in Game 7 of the Final.

According to the now famous NHL Team Salaries pages, the Slugs Sabres are already spending just under $42M, and still need to sign Ryan Miller and Dmitri Kalinin. Additionally, they will need to trade Martin Biron, acquire a backup goalie, and acquire some defensive depth. Selling Marty Biron will be the key ingredient there.

In Canes news, Ryan Bayda, who is a former Cane, has rejoined the franchise. He'll likely be spending a lot of time in Albany, which is just fine with everyone. I'm still looking for them to trade Oleg Tverdovsky and pick up another NHL calibre forward. Even if that doesn't happen, the Canes should be looking good.

Opening night less than two months away, and my season seat will be sweeter than ever. Third row! No more netting in my photos! I can't wait to post my opening night/banner raising pictures. Stay tuned.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've turned myself into some kind of CBA-obsessed hockey dork.

Someone besides Marty will have to go, be it Dumont or Kalinin or someone else. Then add one d-man (they have 6 w/o Kalinin as Nathan Paetsch is ready)and one forward to replace whoever gets traded plus one more to replace Grier and Pyatt (the Sabres had one too many forwards last year.)

Anonymous said...

Stop calling us slugs. I'll start calling your guys tumbleweeds.

d-lee said...

Hey. I didn't invent the nickname "slugs" or "Slugalo", but for you, I'll stop using them.

Bill Purdy said...

Can I keep calling them "The Slugs," Amanda? And, if you wanna keep calling the 'Canes "Tumbleweeds," that's fine, but that's probably a better name for the Thrashers, don't'cha think?

And David, I think it's funny that you're excited about having no netting in your action photos... but your shots of the SC banner in the will have netting in them.

btw... I think you should start a Blue and Gold Hockey site. This Slugalo minutiae is killing me.

DrFrankLives said...

Third row? You b&*^!%d!
What section?

I'm in 110, Row R. Ten rows lower than last year!

d-lee said...

I'm not far from you, DFL. 112, row C. Chris (the Penalty Killer) is in 113, row C.
Lower Level North Gangstaz!

Bill Purdy said...

Yeah, but I've got cupholderz on my end of the arena -- section 130, Row V.

d-lee said...

Oh. We have cup holders on North Sieeeeeed, it's just that they don't exist in rows A-F. The rows, though, have much more leg room. Row J had zero leg room. I feel like I could bring a folding table and set it up in front of me in row C. It's awesome. I don't think the lack of cup holder is going to be an issue.

I'm tellin ya, man. You only think that North Side is the ghetto. Once you sit there, you'll never want to go back. And we have the Deck!

Don't take my word for it, though. Ask Chris.

Anonymous said...

You should write more about Buffalo, the team that would have won the Cup had the Devil himself not struck down Jay McKee before Game 7. It cracks me up how you Canes fans think you earned that Cup. Can't wait to see you eat it next year.

d-lee said...

Wow, "biscuit". You're absolutely right. No other team had to deal with injuries. And Carolina was wicked lucky. Certainly they weren't good at all. We should, in good sportsmanship, decline the Cup.

(end of sarcasm)

Seriously, it really is a shame that Buffalo had a glut of injuries during the playoffs, specifically to their blueline. However, Regier did nothing at the trade deadline other than give Noronen away for a draft pick. Other playoff-bound teams were filling needs, adding quality depth, or simply renting marquee players. Buffalo did nothing, which left them unprepared for the injury bug.

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