Is NHL Salary Arbitration Simply a Numbers Game?

I am writing this Tuesday post in lieu of Wednesday’s this week because today, Kyle Wellwood is having his hearing with the NHL salary arbitrator. Wellwood, his agent, Canucks’ assistant GM Laurence Gillman, the judge, and several other officials will sit in a room as the two sides present cases supporting their proposed numbers.

It won’t be pretty. The Canucks will likely bring up Wellwood’s well-publicized fitness issues, his 21 game goal scoring draught, and his paltry 9 assists for a supposed “playmaker”. Basically, his team will tell him how bad he is, and why he is worth no more than the 1M qualifying offer they placed.

My question is, when the judge deliberates, how much will all of these arguments affect the final number he produces? Will he not simply look at the salaries of other NHL players who had similar production in the past season, and create a number based on that?

In order to answer this question, I have calculated what Wellwood’s salary would be based on the 10 NHL forwards closest to him in production – based on points per game. I have discarded the highest and lowest salary out of those 10, so the number is based on 8 players.

Troy Brower: $ 700,000 0.38 PPG
Radek Bonk: $ 1,350,000 0.38 PPG
Mike Grier: $ 1,775,000 0.37 PPG
Daniel Paille: $ 900,000 0.37 PPG
Josh Bailey: $ 875,000 0.37 PPG

KYLE WELLWOOD: 0.36 Points Per Game

Kyle Calder: $ 2,700,000 0.36 PPG
Mikkel Boedker: $ 875,000 0.36 PPG
Chris Stewart: $ 850,000 0.36 PPG
Maxim Lapierre: $ 575,000 0.35 PPG
Alexander Steen: $ 1,700,000 0.35 PPG

Average salary based on 8 players: $ 1,128,125.


The Canucks have placed a limit on what they will pay, and if the judge awards Wellwood more than $ 1.57M, they will not pay and he will be free to sign with another team. The salary ruling shall come no later than 48 hours after the hearing - by Thursday. Stay tuned.