The Montreal Canadiens avoided salary arbitration with Jacob de La Rose, but couldn’t do the same thing with Phillip Danault and Joel Armia.
The Montreal Canadiens had three possible restricted free agents who could file for Salary Arbitration. Jacob de La Rose was one of them, but the 23-year-old agreed to a two-year contract that will see him make $900,000 per season. The other two were Phillip Danault and Joel Armia.
After the 5:00 PM ET deadline passed, it was revealed that both have decided to take the next step in their contract process to a third party arbitrator.
Danault played 52 games for the Montreal Canadiens this season scoring 8 goals and 17 assists for a total of 25 points. He was used as the team’s second line option at centre, also seeing time on the penalty kill. Complications from that Zdeno Chara slap shot in January cut his season short, and he wasn’t able to eclipse his production from the year before.
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Armia was a piece of the trade that saw the Habs acquire Steve Mason. Montreal also got two draft picks in the deal. The 25-year-old put up 12 goals and 17 assists in 79 games with the Winnipeg Jets being used mostly in a third-line role with time on special teams.
Danault and Armia are coming off contracts that saw them make $912,500 and $925,000 respectively so it would make sense why both would want a raise. However, it looks like the players and management couldn’t agree on an appropriate one.
Although a hearing will be scheduled, the Danault and Armia could still reach an agreement beforehand. The Montreal Canadiens definitely didn’t want to get into this situation with Danault at least going into this offseason as their main priority contract wise.
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It’ll be interesting to see how the rest of this plays out. As I mentioned in a previous post, Salary Arbitration is a tricky thing as players and management have to put together a case for a number they believe is far. Sometimes, the best things don’t come out of it.