Craig arbitration hearing has no hard feelings

The Lightning and Ryan Craig finished a three-and-a-half-hour arbitration hearing Friday in Toronto at about 12:30 p.m., and both sides said the practice, which sometimes can get contentious, ended without any hard feelings.

"Both sides shook hands at the end,'' assistant GM Claude Loiselle said. "It was a very cordial affair.''

"It went as expected and I echo the same sentiment,'' Craig said.

As expected, Craig's side asked for $1.2-million. The Lightning countered with $650,000. The arbitrator can award any salary deemed appropriate. Craig, 25, slotted next season on the fourth line and on special teams, had 14 goals, 27 points in 72 games last season and made $495,000.

A decision is expected Monday.

I'll have a lot more about this in Saturday's paper.

Comments

[Manny]

My guess it that they will split the difference between the $1,200,000 Craig wants, and $650,000 the Lightning offered, and award Craig a salary of $925,000.

[mbab]

i can't see spending that kind of money on him....i would rather them pay pratt then give the money to craig.....his upside is limited no matter how much younger he is than pratt......c'mon jay find someone out there for 900k that can really make a difference 15-20 minutes a game for the whole season.....the new kid from pittsburgh is going to get the bulk of the power play minutes and where does this leave craig???...i don't see anyone else giving him almost a million per year.....so hang tight jay feaster and let him go!!!! 650k take him....950k let him go and keep scouring the drift off players.... or go in and beg the tightwads up stairs for just a wee bit more money and really help the club!!!!!!!!!!

[Joe]

We ought to have a lottery to guess how much the arbitrator determines. My guess is $800,000.

[Another Joe]

If its a one year deal for him I wouldnt go any higher then 850k. He should have taken the 750k for three years. Thats a fair deal.

[Mike13]

$2.25M over 3 years is probably a little low. If they wanted to keep him in the fold that long, then they should've made a higher offer. With few exceptions, when a team "buys out" a year of UFA status for the player, they pretty much always have to overpay.

I already guessed $900K in the other Craig topic, and I'll stick with that. Yes, I think that would be overpaying him. And if that is the award, then it will be a shame. I would be willing to bet that the Craig camp would've gone for $2.7M over 3 years. If Craig blossoms the way that the Lightning hope, then he will be well worth the $900K in year 3.

I have another point that I would like to bring up too. Andre Roy is under contract for 1 more year at $1M. I like Andre, but I like Craig better as far as a player on the ice. Roy brings a LOT to the Locker Room in that he eases tensions and takes the other players' minds off the game a bit. This in turn allows them to play the game more naturally and let their talent flow. For guys like our top guys, that's huge. But its hard to say what that's worth. A mil'?

[mbab]

roy better be a heck of a prankster because at 1 mil...if that is really his salary....he is paid more per minute than any player in the league......they should cut him....which would cost them like 165k against the cap and it would free up another 835k for the cap.....feaster needs to do some creative thinking.......they could find a heck of a lot better hockey player then roy for 835k......like eric perrin!!!! someone needs to check out the roy contract....if it is really one million i would let him go today............t-o-d-a-y!!!!

[mbab]

roy gets paid a million....but his cap number is 500k....bascially minimum wage....i would still try to move him....we need players...roy barely played in the playoffs..looking at the salary figures....i still would let craig go if they got to pay him anymore than around 650k....he is not going to get the minutes......use his money to get defensemen....proven defensemen......why put the money into someone who might only get 12 minutes a night....maybe 12 at most.....when we have a much more needed hole to fill in our number 6 defensemen?????you need a solid 6......not 5 but "6"....that position is much more valualble to a team then a narginal third or even fourth line player.....

[Philip]

Remember how timid the Lightning were before we got Roy back as our "enforcer"? His ice presence is worth what they are paying him. Imagine going against the Sens or Rangers and not having someone other than Tarns to dole out some on-ice equilibrium. We can all speculate where we should/shouldn't spend our money, but "lets not step on the quarters to pick up the nickles".

GO BOLTS!!!

[Satch]

mb, you crack me up buddy! how did you come up with the 165k,835k thing? they can't just cut roy. they could i guess but hockey contracts are guaranteed. even if they release him they have to pay him and his salary still counts against the cap.

since we picked him up off waivers from the penguins its my understanding they pay half his salary for the remainder of his contract and we pay the other half. for 500k per year, we need to keep him. if you trade him you will be replacing him with one of our ahl maybes for basically the same amount of money. for what he brings to the team i think he is worth the 500k.

[Nan]

Guys, we need to keep Roy for enforcement purposes and for loosening the locker room. It looks somewhat promising with Lukowich also there in the mix.

I said 800K - 850K in the prior post for Craig. I am thinking I might be a little low now that they actually went to arbitration. Agree with Manny - probably more around 925K which means the Lightning will most likely trade him and that would be a shame. Davidson should increase his own self imposed salary cap if the situation warrants to keep the kid. JF has a screw loose if he lets him go!

[mbab]

i believe when you let someone go you are liable for 2/3 of their salary but you can spread it out over twice the length of the contract....soooo satchamo you basically have to pay 1/6 of the salary per year for twice as long as the contract....in roy's case they would have to pay 166k for two years........crazy me.....but simple math.....love ya satch....you keep spell checking me until you can sleep at night....love mike....p.s....the fact that it is roy or another minimum wage ahl player is really the root of so many complaints on this blog.....fill out the roster with real nhl players!!!!give us some real depth to match the better teams etc etc....

[Satch]

mb im probably going to be sorry i went here but i just have to. its too darn funny.

mb said - "i believe when you let someone go you are liable for 2/3 of their salary but you can spread it out over twice the length of the contract....soooo satchamo you basically have to pay 1/6 of the salary per year for twice as long as the contract....in roy's case they would have to pay 166k for two years........crazy me.....but simple math....

i really want to answer this but the tears are welling up in my eyes. i'll do my best!

first of all - you can't simply let someone go without full responsibility for their entire contract. period. i think you are confusing a buyout with a cut. now - the time has past to buy roy out. july 20 something or other was the deadline. its long gone. they cut him now they pay his salary and it counts against the cap. not my opinion, its the rules.

in a buyout. i believe the team pays the player 75% of the remaining contract and then takes the buyout amount spread out over twice the remaining years of the contract. andre has 1 yr remaining on his 1 mil contract. buying him out would cost 750k which 375k would be the cap hit for 2 years. i love the 2/3rds 1/6th thing you coughed up. hysterical. simple math? shall i get into the florida school system? naw........ i think it just spoke. simple math.... bahahahahahahaha

mb, i like your spunk. but learn the rules before spouting. and buy a friggin calculator.

[mbab]

satchamo satchamo what hasith you done.....i am correct...i looked it up on line....under the new terms of the contract/cba.....you can buy out a player for 2/3 of the contract and you get twice as long to pay him off.....look up yashin and the islander buy out.....the islanders chose to cut their loses....this is my "point" on some of the contracts we have now....but the facts are the facts and sorry to say the scenario i typed was simple math......the net is you have to pay him 1/6 per year.....search all you want i know i am right on this one....as like many other facts you have pointed out incorrectly.....satch you seem more interested in proof reading everyone, especially me, than talking about ideas and thoughts on the team in general........my general point was why keep roy when you could of signed perrin for almost the same dollars.....does anyone else out there see my logic......you cut/buyout roy and use the money saved to sign perrin or someone else.....roy is a two minute a night hockey player making a million dollars this year......if my thought process is so skewed why the heck did the islanders agree to paying yashin millions of dollars over eight years???the answer is simple, they thought they could spend the remaining money they saved better......sort of like the stock market....sometimes you buy a loser of a stock but you have to sell it at a loss to save at least some of the investment....same theory with a contract that doesn't make sense.......look at denis.....say he stinks it up again this year....do the lightning just keep paying him....or see rule above......buy him out....yes lose a million dollars....but satchamo......look at the glass half full.....you save the team a million that can be used to actually sign a player that "plays"......roy is paid more than guys we are letting go that actually contribute on the ice......not in the locker room....satch i love ya and i will keep deflecting your poison arrows all year.....go bolts.....the roy deal would go down like this......they would have to pay him 333k for two years.....so the net of this is....please follow along......they could have given perrin 700k.....so they would have spent 1,033 mil to keep perrin instead of roy......they are paying roy 1 million....soooooooo they would have spent 33,000 more dollars to have perrin over roy....even if perrin held out for 750k it would have been only a net of 83k!!!.you can guess what i thought would have been the better decision.....you have to comment on the yashin deal and about 10 other buyouts across the league in the last two months.......are all of the GM's so much dumber than jay to be cutting their losses on a big contract.....we just needed to cut our losses on a tiny little contract......satch you get me to worked up.....but i do love ya!!!and by the way...the salary cap hit would of been 167k as roy's salary cap number is half his salary....don't bother checking...i already did the homework for you.....

[mbab]

the net is 1/3 per year for two years...i typed 1/6th my bad....but the rest of the scenario is accurate and being used by quite a few gm's to cut their losses and help their team..but i really would like all of us to discuss the thought process of building "our" team rather than typo's and such....i would rather debate general philosophy versus 110% accuracy of numbers.....agreed???...all of this goes back to a million blogs that "most"of us agree on......it is all about salary cap....our self imposed discounted salary cap....and decisions being made to the depth and quality of our defense and 3rd and 4th lines that seem to be strangling "our" team....but the simple facti is...for very little net money...the lightning could of made a few decisions that would have given us perrin or artechukin on our opening day roster for very very little more money than keeping andre roy....see ya all..signed.. idiot mike!!!!! go bolts!!!!

[Warren]

I'd like to give ownership the benefit of the doubt this season - that though under the cap now, if close to trade deadline and the boys have proven their value, that the purse strings will loosen up. This means Bolts better not start out with their usual slow early start. Hopefully by trade deadline time, they're in top 3 (as SE Div leader). I'd like to see Torts play 3rd & 4th lines more, so other teams can't target big boys. Means the 3rd & 4th liners needs to contribute lots - but with more ice time, hopefully they're more game savvy. Go BOLTS!

umm.. how many hockey arenas can yell a certain players name whenever the game is boring for some amazing hits and maybe even a fight. we need andre. so what if he isn't the best player, but he's the most entertaining!