Pierre-Marc Bouchard elects for Arbitration

TSN is reporting this evening that Minnesota Wild centre Pierre-Marc Bouchard has decided to file for salary arbitration.

Given the steep jump in salaries we are seeing across the board this free-agency season it will be very interesting to see if arbitrators give awards that are in lock-step and commensurae with the new market. A young, high-scoring forward like PMB can probably get offers for upwards of $4.5 million a season right now.

It’s also always interesting to see how a player performs the season following arbitration if he stays with his former club. That club will have just devoted its resources to arguing that the player isn’t valuable to the team, and sometimes the arbitration process builds ill-will especially when dealing with young players.