“He doesn’t want to sign here.”
That’s how blunt Bruce Garrioch of Postmedia was today, when discussing Alex DeBrincat’s future with the Ottawa Senators. Garrioch reports that the Senators have elected to take DeBrincat to arbitration, attempting to get the possible 15% reduction on his $9MM qualifying offer.
That does not mean they will necessarily receive it. As suggested by the name, an arbitrator will decide what DeBrincat’s salary in 2023-24 will be, based on his previous contracts and performance.
It was always a risky play, going after the young forward. Ottawa sent the seventh and 39th overall picks in 2022 (plus a 2024 third-rounder) to the Chicago Blackhawks in exchange for DeBrincat last July, with only one season remaining on his contract. The three-year, $19.2MM deal was heavily back-loaded, forcing any RFA qualifying offer to skyrocket to $9MM.
If DeBrincat doesn’t want to play in Ottawa, he could simply take the one-year arbitration decision and hit unrestricted free agency in 2024 as a 26-year-old with two 41-goal seasons under his belt.
The Senators could get up to 15% off that $9MM, meaning the award could be as low as $7.65MM.
Of course, that doesn’t mean he’ll actually be playing in Ottawa next season. The club is in active trade talks to move the young winger and recoup some of the draft capital they spent last year.
Though he didn’t put up 40 goals, DeBrincat still showed off his scoring touch with the Senators. In 82 games, he lit the lamp 27 times and racked up 66 total points, good enough for fourth on the team behind Tim Stutzle, Brady Tkachuk, and Claude Giroux. In a 450-game NHL career, he now has 187 goals and 373 points.
This will be fun to watch
I don’t want to say I told you so , But I did. His intent was always to go to FA. Davidson knew that and got rid of him as fast as he could. Now you have to trade him with one year of control and the knowledge that he’s not going to re sign with anybody. Good luck with that.
Pass on DeBrincat.
Happy the Sabres locked in both Tage & Dylan for around $7.1mil per x 7 already.
Kinda tough to get a 15% reduction, which would have to come on the premise “He sucked for us last year.”
Nah, more like his 66 points should be closer to 6.6million but $7.65mil is still really good for that production and hes not worth the 9.0
Brayden Point = 95pts this year. 9.5 million
All it takes is for the comps you present to be better than the ones he does. And maybe cross your fingers and toes, too.
That’s not really how arbitration works, though: you don’t get lower awards through “Yeah, but there’s this guy who scored as many points and is making less.”
Got ahead of myself. You are correct as far as what is allowed to be presented to the arbiter, but most of these never get that far. The team and the agent will use the comps with each other though.
That’s true, but in this particular case, if I understand the rules right, Ottawa has to go through with the arbitration AND get awarded a reduction by the arbitrator; they can’t negotiate a lower salary with the agent just by way of filing it. Certainly DeBrincat has zero incentive to get paid less by the Senators.
Pretty sure the Senators are just trying to reduce his salary to make him a more attractive trade piece hoping to evade paying part of his salary. Probably the only team he would re sign with before FA would be Detroit where he’s from. But Yzerman is one of the smartest execs in the league and DeBrincat wouldn’t get anywhere near what he thinks he’s worth there. He has a rather inflated opinion of his worth. A lot of guys would have done what he’s done playing with Patrick Kane. I need go no farther than Dominik Kubalik who hasn’t come close to putting up the numbers he did while he was here with Kane on the PP.