Breaking News: Buffalo Sabres Elect Salary Arbitration With Bo Byram & Utah With Jack McBain

Breaking News: Buffalo Sabres Elect Salary Arbitration With Bo Byram & Utah With Jack McBain

We have more breaking news from the NHL. This time once again around the world of salary arbitration. Yesterday we had big news that 11 NHL restricted free agents had elected to take their teams to the salary arbitration process. Today we get word that two teams have taken the team elected salary arbitration route and we’ll do that against two players being in the Buffalo Sabres and the Utah Mammoth. We’ll discuss that coming up next. Welcome back to another video here at TopShelf Hockey. As I mentioned, we got confirmation here just in the last little bit from NHL insider Elliot Freriedman that the deadline is now passed for team elected salary arbitration. And we actually have a couple of cases where teams have elected to do this. One is the Buffalo Sabres. The second is the Utah Mammoth. The first and more prominent case that’s out there is the curious case of Bowen Byum in Buffalo. Uh we’ve heard tons of rumors and speculation around Byum. The expectation is that he’s on his way out of the Sabres organization and that a trade is uh somewhat imminent. I’m not going to say it’s going to happen today or tomorrow, but that it’s, you know, trending in that direction. Has been for some time. And it won’t surprise anybody if and when that happens. It’s just a matter of where he’s going and what’s the return going to be. Bowen Byron is 24 years old. Of course, was acquired from the Colorado Avalanche at one point, was a fourth overall selection during his draft year. Ended up getting traded to Buffalo in a swap for Casey Middlestat. Middlestat didn’t really work out long-term in Colorado. They’ve since moved on from him and looks like Byum is about to do the same. Although, I wouldn’t really say it’s not that it’s not worked out. I think Byum played fine. He put up a decent amount of points last year, 38 points. It was really critical in my opinion during the absence of top defenseman Raspelene when he was injured. Uh, of course, Byron earned 3.85 million on his most current contract, which is now expired. His qualifying offer that was due to retain his rights was 4.6 6 million. But the word and expectation is is that his next contract from his point of view at least should be much higher somewhere around the $9 million per year vicinity on a longerterm contract extension. So we will see. We’ve heard teams like the St. Louis Blues to some degree the LA Kings um a few other teams as well uh have been in the mix here trying to trade for his services. Uh there’s probably about five or six teams to be honest that’s been in and out of the bay room rumor mill in regards to this team. So it’s hard to say exactly where things go. But um I know when the season ended the word out of Buffalo was that he basically packed up all his stuff and and moved being prepared to to go to a new team in the fall. I don’t think they were prepared at that point to meet his contract demands. And the word is as well is that he wanted to have the not only the contract but the role of being a top pair consistent number one number two defenseman on the team. Uh and of course with the Sabres they do have some good defenders playing uh that they’ve drafted develop first overall like and power and I just don’t know that they’re going to want to have another guy like Byum make you know anywhere near what Dalene’s making or you know and play a similar role. um unless you’re you know there’s no chance that they’re going to move Dalene unless he requested and at this point that has not happened. So Byron’s future in Buffalo always a little bit skeptical to be honest but you know what he’s a good young defender and we’ll see where it goes. Now this will do a couple of things. One, it’s going to put that arbitration hearing probably sometime into the month of August. Uh, of course, just like the 11 players that filed yesterday, those hearings will start most likely uh later this month in July, probably towards the end of the month and throughout the month of August. So, it gives teams lots of time. So, like I said yesterday for the players who elected player elected salary arbitration, a lot of those cases are not going to make it to the actual arbitration hearing. And in these cases, I hope for their sake it doesn’t either. As I mentioned before, things can get nasty in arbitration. It’s basically like a court hearing where you’ve got one side pleading, “I’m a really good player. I deserve this much money.” And then the team that you’re playing for is going to pick on every little fault that you got and try to plead their case to pay you less money. It never typically ends very well. And like I said before, history will show you that players and teams that go through this process together a high percentage of the time end up separating and divorcing or whatever you want to call it within a couple of years because it really impacts the relationship. It really does. Um so now the other thing here too is once they elect arbitration, whether it’s player or team elected, they’re no longer eligible for an offer sheet. So, this will protect Buffalo from that even though Kevin Adams, the GM of the Sabres, made it known that he was prepared to match anything and everything and nobody was going to get Byum on an offer sheet. But at the same time, you don’t want to be forced to uh to match and kind of handcuff yourself into a situation that you don’t want. So, I mean, you don’t really want this to play out either. But to me, this actually does make sense from Buffalo’s standpoint, even though they could match and you would expect them to really think the compensation that’s going to be offered to you if you choose to let the player go is is fair. You think you can do better in a trade, well, obviously you’d rather go that route. This will take that right off the table. So, it’s not a bad move from Buffalo’s standpoint. Um, so we’ll see what happens. I’m a little bit surprised the player um hasn’t been traded yet. I did not expect Byum to go through this because I think he and his agent Darren Ferris want to keep the offer sheet option open if they could control that. But unfortunately, there’s part of this where the team has control too. The other situation is Jack McBain with the Utah Mammoth. 25-year-old bottom six center. Uh he’s got a good size, plays good minutes, decent two-way player, put up 27 points last year, made $1.59 million. uh his qualifying offer was just a smidge more 1.6. Um this one’s a little bit surprising too to be honest that it’s gone this far. But in this case, Utah is protecting themselves as well cuz there was some whispers that McBain might be like a sneaky good kind of lower profile player that you know might be a good offer sheet candidate. Not to say that Utah wouldn’t match, but you know, you put them in a predicament where they’re forced to really make a hard decision and you hope that you get the player. Uh, usually you got to overpay on a short-term contract and well, that’s not going to happen anymore um on an offer sheet for this guy. So, you don’t have to worry about that. Utah will likely get this situation settled. I would think long before it reaches that. McBain, I don’t think at this point, the expectation isn’t that we’re going to see a trade or anything. I do think that there’s a better chance they agree on a contract and settle this outside of the hearing, but they have the opportunity to continue to negotiate until the hearing starts. And at this point, the the hearings aren’t even scheduled. You’re probably going to see those dates probably 3 to four weeks out. So, it buys them a whole bunch of time here. and envy by skates. I like I said, I ex fully expect a trade to be materialized and done with and he’ll sign a contract with his new team before that ever happens. So, uh, we will end up seeing what happens and how this plays out. There’s still a number of RFAS out there that are eligible for offer sheets. Not all of them are arbitration eligible either. So, some are not able to go through this process and some haven’t filed. So, there’s still a possibility of an offer sheet, but as now as time goes on and we’ve gone through both of these deadlines, it does shrink the pool of players that are even eligible to get one. So, we’ll have to wait and see where things go. Let me know your thoughts on Byum and McCain. How does this play out? Will these players go through this process or will it be resolved much sooner on their own accord? Let me know your thoughts in the comments. We’ll discuss further. If you’re new to the channel, make sure you subscribe and stick around. We’ll keep you up to date with all the news, rumors, and analysis of all 32 NHL teams. Thanks for watching. I’ll catch you next time. [Music]

Breaking News: Buffalo Sabres Elect Salary Arbitration With Bo Byram & Utah With Jack McBain

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