I'm not worried at all about Ed. We still have about 10 days to work out an extension and it is in the interest of both parties to get it done. Ed will get a very low arbitration award, because the things he excels in are hard to quantify, he has length of NHL service is somewhat limited and his offensive stats are modest. He played bottom pairing minutes his first couple seasons here when the team made the playoffs and only played top 4 minutes the season we missed the playoffs. That's not going to score him many points in the "player's overall contribution to team success or failure" category. He's not a star player and he doesn't wear a letter. It will be very easy for the Blues to convince an arbitrator that he is a complimentary player and will be difficult for Ed to rebut since he can't present video or testimonial evidence. The type of game Ed plays is one of the hardest to quantifiably value using the metrics an arbitrator takes into consideration.
Look at what Nate Schmidt got last year: a 2 year award at $2.25 mil per year. Schmidt was 25 and coming off 17 points in 60 games for the Caps. He had 16 points in 76 games the year before, 200 NHL games when entering arbitration (Ed has 205) and a better +/- than Ed (for better or worse, this is a stat used by the NHL and can be presented to an arbitrator). His possession numbers entering arbitration were better than Ed's, but he also had easier deployment. I have a hard time believing Ed could hope for a higher award than Schmidt, especially for a 1 year award.
For argument's sake, let's say he gets a $2.5 mil arbitration award on a 1 year deal (which I think is best case scenario for him). That's about a $1.5 mil pay cut from what he would likely get on year 1 of a 4-5 year deal here. He'd be an RFA at the end of that deal and would likely be looking at extension offers from the Blues for roughly the same amount he is getting now. Given our logjam at LD at the moment, I don't think it is a given that he will outproduce what he did last season. I think it is unlikely that the eventual extension would be worth much more than the $1.5 pay cut he takes for this upcoming season. If he goes to arbitration again, we'd take a 2 year deal, so he'd be looking at 3 total years of arbitration awards before UFA, leaving $4+ mil on the table over those 3 years. I don't think he recovers that in years 4 and 5 when he hits UFA. Even if he does, it is delayed by 3 years. Assuming he is investing a decent chunk of his salary, missing out on 3 years of investments carries a cost.
Any way you slice it, going to arbitration instead of taking a $4ish mil AAV on a medium term deal is a lot of risk with little potential reward for Ed. If the Blues are making 4-5 year offers, it is in both parties' best interest to get a deal done on that instead of going to arbitration.
