How the Bertuzzi and Galchenyuk deals will affect Ryan Strome

Two high profile NHL players signed contracts that could affect the New York Rangers’ negotiations with Ryan Strome

While the New York Rangers continue to negotiate with Ryan Strome with a November 6 arbitration date looming, there were two signings that could affect those talks.  One was an arbitration award for Tyler Bertuzzi and the other was a contract for free agent Alex Galchenyuk.

Bertuzzi is a 25 year old left wing who took the Detroit Red Wings to arbitration as a Restricted Free Agent (RFA).  He was reportedly asking for a contract worth $4.25 million.  The Red Wings’ figure was $3.15 million.   The arbitrator awarded him a one year deal with $3.5 million and Bertuzzi signed.

Bertuzzi had previously been making $1.4 million and he was coming off the best season of his career.  In 71 games he scored 21 goals and added 27 assists for 48 points.  His plus/minus was -23 playing for the worst team in the league. It was his second straight season with similar stats.

Ottawa announced that they had signed free agent center Alex Galchenyuk to a one-year deal worth $1.05 million (details unconfirmed).  It’s quite a cut in pay for Galchenyuk who had been making $4.9 million a year on a three-year deal he had signed with Montreal in 2017.

He had been a consistent 20-goal, 45 point producer over five seasons, but after signing the deal he was traded first to Arizona, then to Pittsburgh before ending up in Minnesota this season.  This season he dropped to only eight goals and 24 points in 59 games.

How does it affect Strome?

The Bertuzzi decision impacts Strome more as it was an actual arbitration (the first one this year).  Strome is two years older than Bertuzzi, but over the last three years their numbers have been very similar.  Strome has scored 50 goal to Bertuzzi’s 49.  Strome has 128 points to 119 for Bertuzzi.  Strome did play 41 more games than Bertuzzi in that time.

While Strome is a center and that position is more valued than a winger,  Bertuzzi played on the Red Wings’ top line with Dylan Larkin and often Anthony Mantha.  Bertuzzi is also a physical, gritty player and he brings that element to his game. The issue for Strome is how much he benefited from playing with Artemi Panarin.

Strome is expected to be seeking a payday in excess of $5 million, a sizable increase over his $3.1 million annual salary.  When it came to Bertuzzi, it appears that the arbitrator took the current financial situation into account and if Strome is seeking that much he may be disappointed.   In the Bertuzzi case, the arbitrator didn’t even split the difference, coming down closer to the team’s number than the player’s.

The fact that Galchenyuk took almost a $4 million pay cut to sign with Ottawa will also weigh on the Strome team.  The simple fact is that teams are not willing to ante up a big payout in this economy and even though the Senators are one of the teams with a decent amount of cap space, they were only willing to pay him just over $1 million.

Ryan Strome and Brendan Lemieux are two of the few remaining arbitration cases that haven’t been settled.  They’ll be watching what happens with Victor Olofsson and the Sabres due for a hearing on November 4.

Prospect news

Vitali Kravtsov was scoreless in Traktor’s 4-1 win over Torpedo.  He played 15 shifts and 13:31 minutes and finished with two shots on goal and was credited with one hit.  Traktor is now in fourth place in the Eastern Conference of the KHL, only four points out of first place.

In Sweden, Jakob Ragnarsson was on the winning side of  Timrå’s 4-0 shutout win at Södertälje.  Ragnarsson, a defense prospect, had no points and was +1 on the game.   He is playing on the second defense pairing for Timrå, in second place in the Allsvenskan League with a 7-0-0-2 record.

The only other prospect who was supposed to be in action was goalie Hugo Ollas for the Linköping junior team. They had their third straight cancellation after a positive COVID-19 test with their game against Färjestad postponed.

Linköping’s teams in the SHL and junior hockey are all on quarantine after 24 personnel with the SHL team tested positive along with four from the team’s hockey academy (where the junior team is based).

Hear from Alexis Lafrenière and Braden Schneider

The New York Rangers will be hosting a “chalk talk” live on Twitter and YouTube with their two first round draft picks this year.

The event will be live on Thursday, October 28 and 6pm.