With an upcoming arbitration hearing on Wednesday July 26th, Ryan Spooner and the Boston Bruins have exchanged salary figures. According to Tim Wharnsby of CBC, the Bruins have offered a one-year deal worth $2MM, while Spooner is seeking a $3.85MM decision. As reported yesterday, it seems likely the two sides will reach the hearing without a deal in place.
Whatever you think of Spooner and his defensive deficiencies, he’s proven over the past two seasons that he can be a capable offensive player and is extremely dangerous on the powerplay. With 88 points over the past two seasons, he’d been extremely underpaid at just $950K per season. It’s clear he thinks he’s worth much more than that, and if any long-term deal is to be reached it would have to fairly compensate him for that production. A one-year deal through arbitration will keep Spooner under team control again next offseason as a restricted free agent, giving the Bruins another chance to evaluate him this year.
That is, if he remains on the Bruins roster to start the year. Trade rumors have surrounded Spooner for some time, especially after comments he made regarding fired head coach Claude Julien and a feeling of distrust. Though Spooner had expressed some hope to fix that relationship with Bruce Cassidy, the coach who replaced Julien and had worked with Spooner before in the minor leagues, his ice time actually decreased in the latter part of the season before being scratched in the playoffs for Sean Kuraly.
It’s rare that players are traded just before heading to arbitration, so there is a possibility the Bruins will argue for a lower number only to move him out in the near future. Otherwise, he’ll enter a lineup that is looking younger and younger as one of the pieces Cassidy will have to rely on for some consistent offensive production. What role he would be deployed in is unclear, as the Bruins will look at young college talents like Anders Bjork and Jakob Forsbacka Karlsson in camp as potential options up front.
Spooner proved nothing last season. He was a huge disappointment. His effort was awful. I excpected to improve on his previous season & the opposite happened. His compete level is simply not good enough.
Agree but that cant be quantified in arbitration.. just that he has been a pretty good playmaker and power play guy for the last two years… he is asking for the stars and hoping to land on the moon tho so i dont blame him.
With all this trade talk going back several months now, I still don’t quite understand why Sweeney hasn’t moved him yet. Do you think he’s actually going to on the team again this year?
Hey look at Colorado and Duchene lol. Those rumors have been floating around for like at least a year
I would move Spooner as part of a package for Duchene personally. Spooner, one of their best defensive prospects, a 2nd, a first and a future 3rd instead if they are willing to retain enough of Duchene’s salary to comfortably fit him and Pastrnak in.
A second is in one deal. OR another possibility is a 1st and 3rd instead if they retain salary.
I still hope they trade Spooner, he’s got talent but he’s so weak on the puck and I can’t see that suddenly changing. Maybe another team can get his compete level up but I’d rather the Bs not even waste 2m on him let alone the arb figure he submitted.
He’s way more valuable once he goes through arbitration because I believe it extends his RFA status for one more year. If he signs for 1 year 2.5 million and still has RFA status then teams might be more likely to deal for him because he is more controllable.