Thankfully, James Mirtle put a link up on Twitter of the complete list of NHL players who have opted for salary arbitration, with Jannik Hansen and Tanner Glass joining Mason Raymond on the arbitration waiting list. Shane O'Brien has decided not to go to arbitration. That decision stumped me for a bit, to be honest. But then I remembered something SOB said back in mid-May:
"Hopefully I don’t have to go to arbitration and, from what I heard, it’s not a pleasant process," he said. "They’ve probably got a lot of material they can use against me so it probably wouldn’t work too well. "If a one-year deal is all I’m going to get, I’ll come in and play hard but obviously, as a player, you’re looking for a bit of security." -Vancouver Sun
That's not really giving us a lot except confirming that O'Brien's fate rests completely in Mike Gillis' hands. The question now is: what do you pay SOB $1.6 million to be your 6th or 7th defenceman? (O'Brien is in the 6th or 7th spot if Mike Gillis trades Kevin Bieksa to clear cap room.) Who would you rather keep? Shane O'Brien or Andrew Alberts? SOB or Aaron Rome? Dollars are going to play the biggest role here. To me, after looking at Cap Geek once again,
(Edit): Avoiding arbitration means SOB has accepted a salary of $1.6 million, the amount he made last season. In that case I'll take Alberts or Rome over SOB any day because of the cap savings. I asked James Mirtle about SOB and he said (via Twitter): I imagine he'll be moved, along with one of the other defencemen. Way too many bodies back there. It's almost the only answer isn't it?
Oh, and about Hansen and Glass...what to do with them? Which of the 2 would you keep? What would a Mike Gillis or an arbitrator award them? Personally, I wouldn't pay either one of them more than $700,000, but I wouldn't mind keeping both of them to shore up the bottom 6.