Hayes, Kreider, McIlrath & Miller file for salary arbitration

The deadline for NHL players to file for salary arbitration expired today at 5:00 pm (Eastern Standard Time), and the NHL Players’ Association has released the official list. Of the 24 players to file league-wide, four of them are NY Rangers: Kevin Hayes, Chris Kreider, Dylan McIlrath & J.T. Miller.

The hearings will be scheduled for mid-to-late July or early August.

A few notes on what this means:

• These players are now shielded from any potential offer sheets from competing hockey clubs.
• Players are guaranteed to be awarded a minimum of 85% of their 2015-16 season salary (this shouldn’t be an issue, as all four players are easily “worth” at least that amount going forward).
• The Rangers will decide on whether the arbitration scheduled will be for determining a one or two year deal.
• Since the Rangers had multiple players file for arbitration, they will indeed have a secondary buyout window open three days after all four players have settled their next contracts (whether it actually goes to a full hearing or settled beforehand)./

The Rangers have not had a restricted free agent actually go the full route of salary arbitration since 2009, when Nik Zherdev was awarded 1-year, $3.9 million, but the Rangers opted to turn down and walk away from the settlement.

All the recent restricted free agent Rangers to file for arbitration since Zherdev have all managed to agree to amicable extensions before the actual arbitration case (Derek Stepan in 2015, as well as Derick Brassard, Chris Kreider & Mats Zuccarello in 2014).

Here is a wonderful writeup on the nitty-gritty of NHL salary arbitration.