The Boston Bruins and Trent Frederic have exchanged contract arbitration numbers and are quite far apart from each other.
The Bruins want a two-year deal at $1.4M annually and Frederic wants a one-year deal at $2.9M, according to Elliotte Friedman.
This year, 22 players from around the NHL have elected to go to arbitration to decide their next contract. As of now, seven of those players have not settled on a contract number with their respective teams and will have an independent arbiter decide the structure of their next contract.
Among those are Troy Terry from the Anaheim Ducks, Filip Gustavsson from the Minnesota Wild, Ryan McLeod from the Edmonton Oilers, Drew O’Connor from the Pittsburgh Penguins, Brandon Scanlin from the New York Rangers, as well as Jeremy Swayman and Frederic from the Bruins.
Most of those teams would love to get a fair deal done with their respective players but because of salary cap constraints they’re forced to play hard ball.
The exception to that rule is Troy Terry and the Ducks, who are actually roughly $5M under the salary cap floor. There, it seems, they simply have a disagreement on money or term.
Frederic played his third full NHL season this past year, scoring 17 goals and 31 points as a member of the Bruins team that broke regular season records with 65 wins and 135 points.
Originally a first-round pick of the Bruins, Frederic has established himself as a full-time NHLer and a key member of the team’s secondary scoring. He has played 198 game so far with the Bruins and scored 29 goals and 54 points in that span. He has no points in nine career playoff games.
The arbiter will likely award Frederic a contract more or less down the middle, somewhere around one-year at $2.15M would be a good educated guess.
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