Somewhat Nervous

As I had expected and feared, Cammalleri is taking the Kings to arbitration. Last offseason, the Kings managed to avoid arbitration by re-signing Cammy to a one-year deal worth $1.7 million. I still think that was a fair deal and I think the Kings re-signed him to a one-year deal to see how he would do the upcoming season. Since Cammy's production exploded this past season, I was expecting the Kings to try to lock him up while also giving him a pay raise.

Since I am not too familiar with anything related to hockey contracts, I give you the explanation on TSN's article:

"Arbitrators can only hand out one or two-year awards. Arbitrator decisions must be made within 48 hours of the hearing, and teams then have 48 hours (or 48 hours after the team's last hearing is concluded if they have more than one) to accept the contract or walk away, immediately making the player an unrestricted free agent. Note that a team that requests arbitration does not have walk-away rights."

Why I'm worried:

1. While I would like to think that Cammalleri isn't a greedy little bastard, if Drury apparently is one, I guess anyone can be. I wish I knew what DL actually offered Cammalleri, but since I don't, here's what I would have offered him if I was DL: 3-year contract paying him $3 million this coming season , $3.5 million the next season, and $4 million the year after that with, of course, bonus options. Considering how inflated a lot of the recent free-agent contracts are, I'm very worried that Cammalleri is going to be asking for over $4 million and maybe even close to $5 million. I'm honestly not sure if he's worth that much since he only has one stellar season to his name. My recurring nightmare is that DL will laugh in Cammy's face if he asks for $5M and then I'll have to suffer when I read that Ed-Mon-Ton snatched him up.




2. If the Kings agree to re-sign Cammalleri they will only be able to re-sign him for a maximum of two years. It would be nice if we could lock him up for at least three years, but I guess I can't have everything.




3. I wonder if salary arbitration is bad for player/personnel relations. If a player takes an organization to arbitration is that a slap in the GM's face or do the GMs take it in stride, understanding that it's just a business and everyone is just trying to get paid?

Why I'm not worried:

1. The Kings have a lot of cap space left after not overpaying for Briere, Drury, Gomez, or Souray. I realize that DL is cautious with spending too much now in fear that he won't be able to re-sign Kopi and JMFJ in the near future. It's completely understandable and considering how smitten I am with Kopi, I would be devastated if the Kings couldn't afford to re-sign him when his time comes. With available cap space, DL is now able to attempt to re-sign Cammy and Lubo to longer contracts and pay them a bit more than they may deserve in order to secure their place on a team in which they're surely becoming franchise players.

I really hope the Kings bring back Cammalleri even if he is awarded an inflated contract. I'm confident that he'll continue to be a power forward in seasons to come. Also, who else on the offensive line is squee-worthy? I'll have a lot of time to think about who else deserves the Kings Squee Crown since arbitration doesn't begin until July 20th. I guess I should call my nail salon and cancel my upcoming appointment since I won't have any nails till after July 20th.