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The curious arbitration case of Fabian Brunnstrom

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As arbitration hearings draw closer for many teams and players, the cases surrounding some players grow more interesting. Take, for example, the situation involving Dallas Stars enigmatic forward Fabian Brunnstrom. Brunnstrom was signed out of Sweden two years ago after a hotly contested negotiation between the Stars and the Detroit Red Wings. The Stars were able to do something different and woo a Swede away from the Red Wings and many Stars fans are probably wishing that they hadn’t.

Through two seasons and 99 games played, Brunnstrom has scored just 19 goals and 21 assists while averaging just over 11 minutes a game. At a price tag on the cap of $2.225 million over the last two years, Brunnstrom has been a colossal failure. The Dallas Morning News’ Mike Heika has a fascinating overview of Brunnstrom’s case and what the Stars might look to do when his arbitration hearing is had on Friday morning.

The minimum walk away level for an NHL arbitration hearing is $1,611,180, so [agent J.P.] Barry might shoot for the moon and ask for $1 million or more, but it would seem that he would be defeating his chance to get a one-way deal (which appears to be extremely important to Brunnstrom). Either way, the Stars will not be able to walk away from this hearing. They will either have Brunnstrom on a two-way contract or have him on a one-way deal. So what does it mean if they get him on a one-way deal? It means they would have 13 forwards in house with RFA James Neal the 14th and an open invitation to Jere Lehtinen to become the 15th. That would clearly push them to make a move or two.

So this will be interesting to watch.

The two sides can come to a deal before the hearing, but it doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen.

Obviously the Stars will have some jockeying to do here and Brunnstrom is a guy that just hasn’t been able to find his way with the team. With the steep price tag for walking away and the Stars financial frugality while waiting for a potential new owner to take over, the spot the team is in is tricky. Clearly they’d like to get things squared away with James Neal as soon as possible and then figure out if Jere Lehtinen wants to give it another go. Brunnstrom appears to be the bump in the road, especially when he’s looking to stay at the NHL level and not have to go back to riding buses in the AHL. It could help his case a bit more if his play dictated that he stay in the NHL more often than not.