Russian forward Yakov Trenin will remain a Nashville hockey player for another two years by a court decision – he was awarded a salary of $ 1.7 million for the season. The hockey player himself wanted a contract for one year with a salary of 2.4, the club offered a two-year agreement for 1.3 million. It seems that the final decision satisfies the interests of Nashville more.

Don’t piss off the judges!

This summer, Trenin became one of 24 restricted free agents who failed to negotiate future contracts with their clubs. The lack of agreements allowed each of them to apply to the NHL arbitration, an independent body similar to a classic court. It determines the size of the player’s new contract.

Most often, hockey players go to court, after all, they are more interested in continuing their careers, but it happens that clubs also file for arbitration. The decision is made by a panel of professional arbitrators, and the process itself resembles a standard court session: each of the parties, using facts, tries to convince the judges that they are right. But it is impossible to put pressure on pity, trying to manipulate referees: that is, clubs cannot take advantage of complaints about the lack of space under the salary cap. This will rather piss off the judges, but it’s not worth making them angry: in the end, they make a choice based not only on the points of view they heard and their own view of the situation.

Say goodbye to the hockey player, if only there was no arbitration

One of the key techniques that hockey players operate during the process is to equate their future contract with the contracts of players with exactly the same performance. Especially if the statistics of colleagues is impressive, and the amount of agreements among hockey players who are close in level go off scale.

It was for this reason that Washington refused to make a qualifying offer to Russian goaltender Ilya Samsonov, who became a restricted free agent in the summer. If the offer did not suit the goalkeeper, he would have applied to the arbitration court, where he could well point to the contract of his compatriot Alexander Georgiev with Colorado with an annual salary of 3.4 million. A reference that could well lure the board of referees to the side of the hockey player.

Ilya Samsonov / Photo: © Rob Carr / Staff / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru

The Capitals were not ready to spend that kind of money on Samsonov, therefore, trying to avoid arbitration, they let him go to Toronto without a fight.

Well, what about Trenin?

The Russian signed a rookie contract back in 2015, played in the Predators’ farm club, and made his NHL debut in 2019, at the age of 22. Trenin became a 100% base player only last season. He also became the most productive for him – 24 points (17 + 7) in 80 regular season games and three more goals in four playoff games against the future champion Colorado.

Despite the fact that Trenin has been playing in North America since 2015 with a break for a short business trip to SKA in the 2020/21 season, he has not yet had a decent salary by the standards of local hockey. Under the rookie contract, he received just under 800 thousand a year, and in 2020 he extended the agreement with Nashville for another two seasons, even for more modest money.

Photo: © Adam Davis / Icon Sportswire / imago-images.de / Global Look Press

Not surprisingly, this summer Trenin was determined and went to court: it is impossible to spend your entire career playing for the minimum wage.

Trenin failed to convince the court

The striker’s requests were as follows – to receive a one-year contract with a salary of 2.4 million, while Nashville insisted on a two-year contract with a total cap hit of 3.4.

Although Trenin’s expectations did not look too high, obviously, the hockey player’s side could not convince the court of their fairness. Although 24 points per season is the best result in a North American career for a Russian, in general this is a rather modest figure. Nick Dowd of Washington (1.6 million per season), Tyler Ennis of Ottawa (900 thousand), Blake Lizotte of Kings (1.6 million) scored the same amount this season. At the same time, each of them played a little less regular season matches than Trenin.

Most often, if the positions of both the hockey player and the club are objective and understandable, the court compromises and makes a decision somewhere in the middle between supply and demand. So it happened this time – 1.7 million per season – almost the golden mean. Well, the term of the contract has already been determined by the arbitration participant who did not sue. In this case, it was Nashville, which is why Trenin has a two-year contract, as the club wanted.

Despite the fact that the Russian actually lost – after all, the final amount and the term are much more satisfying for Nashville, he at least went for a raise. In addition, Trenin will have two more years to establish himself in the NHL, and make sure that the next contract is much more generous.