Compher, Dries, and Graves elect for Salary Arbitration

At 5pm ET, the NHLPA announced that 40 restricted free agent players have elected for salary arbitration this summer. This process allows each player and the team that holds their rights to go before a neutral arbitrator in order to come to terms on a contract for the player.

How this works is the team and the player’s agent each put forth an argument for why the player in question should get more or less money. This is infamously a messy process where the players or the team can hurt their relationship, but it is not common that disputes get personal.

For a full list of all the players who elected arbitration, see the link above. Under the Colorado Avalanche section, J.T. Compher, Sheldon Dries, and Ryan Graves have all elected for arbitration.

The Avalanche had five players with the right to elect for arbitration, but Andre Burakovsky and Anton Lindholm chose to not undergo the process. This is likely because the two sides feel like a contract for each player is imminent, or the team will elect for arbitration themselves tomorrow at the 5pm ET deadline.

For any questions regarding arbitration and who’s eligible for the process, check out this handy web-page from the NHL’s greatest private resource: Cap Friendly. They breakdown who is eligible for arbitration, for when, and why.

As for Compher, Dries, and Graves, here are the projected contract numbers that Evolving Wild have put together for each player. Keep in mind that the projections that EW have made thus far have been, on average, within 0.76 years and $332,565 AAV of the actual deal signed.

JT Compher

6 years (25.6% likely): $3,873,645 AAV

2 years (23.6% likely): $2,704,415 AAV

3 years (19.2% likely): $3,196,178 AAV

Sheldon Dries

1 years (45.2% likely): $787,840 AAV

2 years (28.8% likely): $836,084 AAV

3 years (24.2% likely): $1,155,563

Ryan Graves

1 years (46.8% likely): $845,591 AAV

2 years (44.6% likely): $810,374 AAV

3 years (6.4% likely): $1,021,963 AAV