The Golden Knights now know what they will be paying defenseman Nate Schmidt for the next two years. Craig Morgan of Arizona Sports reports (Twitter link) that Schmidt has been awarded a two year, $4.45MM deal by an arbitrator. He will receive $2.15MM in 2017-18 and $2.3MM in 2018-19. He will now be eligible for unrestricted free agency in July of 2019.
The deal comes in quite a bit closer to what Schmidt’s representatives proposed than what Vegas offered. Back on Tuesday, the team offered a two-year pact worth a total of $1.95MM while Schmidt countered with a one-year, $2.75MM pact. Because it was Schmidt who filed for arbitration, the team got to choose between signing him for one season or two.
The 26-year-old was selected from Washington in June’s Expansion Draft after a strong late-season and playoff showing. In 60 regular season games, Schmidt had three goals and 14 assists while averaging 15:27 per night. He got into the playoff lineup when Karl Alzner went down and never looked back. Overall, Schmidt played in 11 postseason contests, collecting a goal and three assists while seeing his average ice time increase to 16:39 per game.
[Related: Golden Knights Depth Chart From Roster Resource]
With this award, the Golden Knights now have all of their players selected from expansion under contract. They still have more than $5.5MM in cap space remaining and considering their willingness to take on bad contracts in exchange for other assets, it will be interesting to see if GM George McPhee will go that route once again.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman (via Twitter) was first to report that the award had been made.