Blake Wheeler is scheduled to have his arbitration hearing at 9:00 AM EST. That is how long the Boston Bruins have to work out a contract with their arbitration eligible power forward.
This kid could be the subject of trade talks, especially if the salary is too high.
The Bruins are a very fiscally prudent team, and as such do not put it above them to either jettison Wheeler, or maybe even let him go for nothing. Last year a similar saga was played out with Kessel, except he was not given money from arbitration—other teams were offering him more.
With Wheeler, once he accepted arbitration no offer sheets were possible, so the Bruins had exclusive negotiating rights to him and will have exclusive negotiating rights unless they let him become a UFA. This would put a very promising young player into free agency early, at which point he would have a lot of suitors.
Now, since the arbitration process gives him money to similar players, we know for sure he will make less than $2.55 million per year. This is because Mason Raymond got that and I believe he performed better. Raymond had 25 goals and 28 assists for a grand total of 53 poi ...
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Article written by Imtiaz Ferdous
How the Blake Wheeler Arbitration Will Affect Everybody in the NHL
July 27th, 2010 by Imtiaz Ferdous Leave a reply »
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