Sekeres and Price: Frank Seravalli on with Matt Sekeres and Blake Price talking about pending RFA defenseman Filip Hronek and how the Vancouver Canucks may not want to go to salary arbitration with him this offseason and the notion that he can’t make more money than Quinn Hughes.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Seravalli: “I think the comparison I made was a Corvette and a Prius. These are not the two same things. And by that, I mean not comparing the style of players, but an RFA deal and a UFA deal are two totally different types of contracts in the NHL.
Sekeres: “Right. Right. And of course, Quinn Hughes was nowhere near unrestricted free agency. He was purely an RFA when the Canucks re-signed him to $7.85 (million per season).
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Filip Hronek is one year away from unrestricted free agency where he would be one of the rarest birds in UFA. You almost never get a young right-shot two-way, all situations defenseman hit unrestricted free agency. In which case bonanza, right?
What I’m interested in is, you think he’s a seven and a half a million dollar guy in arbitration …”
Seravali: “Yeah.”
Sekeres: “… this year if it gets that. What are the comparables there, Frank? You know, what, what brings us to that number in arbitration.
Seravalli: “Counting stats. 35 even-strength points. 45 points overall. 24 minutes at night. I mean, then go back and size up the market and look at the deals that have been signed. I mean, he squarely fits right in that range. I mean, it’s, it’s a no doubt, don’t lose any sleep. This is what the arbitrator is coming back with.
Here’s the problem for the Canucks is they can’t go down the arbitration path. It’s not all really all that different than Pettersson in the sense that okay, you walk him to ARB, which walks him to UFA, you got to trade him before the season starts because you don’t want to be going into the season saying, ‘Man, we really need to recoup assets for this guy who’s such a huge part of our team. But we were trying to make the playoffs and win the Stanley Cup.’
So there’s a timeline to this and it’s, it’s really before a player can file for ARB. That’s the deadline. That’s the similarity with Pettersson. And I think to this point, to be fair, like I’m not presenting it as anything other than, it’s been totally status quo. Everything’s on good terms. To my knowledge, I think the conversations have been preliminary and the Canucks know they need to get to work on this file, but I, at least unless something changes, I don’t think it’s going to happen between now and the end of whenever the Canucks are playing.
Price: “Is there too many sunk costs here? I mean, is it a fait accompli that they have to sign this player? That they will not trade him for another player under contract saying ‘Okay, we just can’t afford it in our cap situation.’ Or again, they just meant so much that they don’t want to deal with a PR disaster or, or anything else.”
Seravalli: “I don’t, I don’t think it’s a fait accompli at all. I mean, I would say that different teams have different lines that they want to draw on the sand. If the Canucks want to stand on principle and say this is our cap structure, Quinn Hughes is our best defenseman and no one is making any more than him. Well, that’s fine. It’s just that someone, like as mentioned with the ARB case, if that’s the ARB this year, why would you take less than that …”
Price: “Going forward.”
Seravalli: “… and sign an eight-year deal when the caps going up.”
Price: “Right.”
Serevalli: “Like it makes no sense from the player’s perspective. And so I think the other part of what you start to get into after that is the Canucks would be in a really tough spot trying to trade him because then you have a guy that’s already done all of the heavy lifting to get close to free agency. All he has to do is raise his hand and say, ‘I’m not engaging in any negotiate, negotiation with any team if you require me and I’m going to market.’
All that does is absolutely plummet the return that the Canucks could get. They’re dealing probably in 50 cents on the dollar and what they were looking at, in what they gave up a first and a second.
And more than that, I think there’s real risk for the Canucks, and frankly if we’re being fair, there’s risk for both parties here in that he’s been such a great fit with Quinn Hughes, and a no maintenance type player. It’s a risk for them to then have to go out and find another right-shot guy who clearly fits. But it’s also some risk for him and that wherever he goes, yeah, he might get paid, he might make the money, but he might not find a fit where he’s as important and valuable and productive somewhere else.
So there’s some mutual, I don’t what do they call it the bad theory – Mutual Assured Destruction.”
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Serekes: “Destruction. Yeah.”
Sereavalli: “There’s, there’s a healthy bit of that, I think, in general with this moving forward.”
