It must be a very uncomfortable feeling for a player when a team walks away from an arbitration decision. My guess is that it would be a lot like the feeling someone would get if their date scrambled from a restaurant after seeing the bill for dinner.
This last summer, we saw the Chicago Blackhawks walk away from a one-year, $2.75 million award for Antti Niemi (for cap-related reasons) and the Atlanta Thrashers deny Clarke MacArthur a $2.4 million award (because they didn’t think he was worth the cash, and rightfully so, I’d say). These moments happen from time to time, so NHL.com listed the biggest salary arbitration rejections since the lockout ended. Here are the players who made the list aside from Niemi and MacArthur.
J.P. Dumont, 2006 -- Buffalo Sabres GM Darcy Regier made the difficult decision to walk away from Dumont despite the winger’s solid production in 2005-06. Dumont, then 28 years old, had 20 goals and 20 assists for the Sabres, who reached the Eastern Conference Finals that year. Dumont went 7-7-14 in 18 playoff games, but his $2.9 million award was simply too much for Buffalo, which was also up against the cap.
Nikolai Zherdev, 2009 -- One would have thought the Russian winger would have been safe after appearing in all 82 games and tallying 23 goals and 35 assists for the New York Rangers in 2008-09, but GM Glen Sather declined to accept Zherdev’s $3.9 million award.
David Tanabe, 2006 -- A first-round selection (No. 16) by the Carolina Hurricanes in 1999, Tanabe was awarded a $1.275 million salary after going 4-12-16 in 54 games for the Boston Bruins in 2005-06. But the Bruins felt the price was too steep for the 6-foot-1, 212-pound defenseman, and Tanabe became an unrestricted free agent.
Less than a month later, Tanabe signed on for a second stint with the Hurricanes. Unfortunately, a concussion suffered against Toronto in December 2007 ended his career at the age of 27.