biturbo19
Registered User
- Jul 13, 2010
- 26,018
- 11,085
The issue isn't what his QO is - that's irrelevant. The issue is if/when he files for arbitration. If he gets 3m-4m in arbitration the Pens cannot walk away (needs to be ~4.6m). Now I doubt he gets that much... but that's the risk and if he doesn't get qualified, that would be why.
Yeah. There's definitely some "risk" involved with Kapanen, when it comes to potential Arbitration. He could very conceivably ring in at something just under that "walk away" number. Something like $4.25-4.5M wouldn't be surprising arbitration award at all. That's probably not something that works very well for the Penguins and their situation.
But i really feel like, even at that sort of arbitrated salary, there would be teams out there willing to take a flyer on Kapanen if the Pens ended up needing to unload him. Made a little bit more complicated, and limited in the potential suitors by the fact that award could come down late enough in the offseason that a lot of other teams will have made their moves and be largely nestled in against the salary cap with no room left to take him on.
But there are enough teams that will have a bit of cap space left to play with, and a lot of those sort of teams are probably the type who would potentially be interesting in seeing what Kapanen can do for them, with some opportunity to spare anyway. Wouldn't expect much of a return in that scenario, but i'm pretty confident that when it comes to players like Kapanen/Zacha, even if the arbitration award becomes problematic, they'd be able to find a taker to get out from under it if need be.
Someone like Kase on the other hand...i doubt there'd be any takers. Which becomes a serious problem, with no good solutions.