Boston Bruins: Danton Heinen opts for arbitration hearing to secure deal

Boston Bruins winger, Danton Heinen has opted for salary arbitration to secure a new deal he feels worthy of his talents.

Whilst we doubt there is animosity between the parties, Danton Heinen clearly hasn’t been impressed by the negotiations and has instead opted for an independent arbitrator to tell the Boston Bruins exactly what he’s worth.

Now often these arbitration cases don’t end up going all the way to the independent arbitrator and are sorted out earlier than that, but we figured it worth looking at some comparable contracts to determine what sort of value deal he might be up for.

Danton Heinen, in two full seasons with the Boston Bruins, has played 154 games, scoring 27 goals, adding 54 assists and playing a strong two-way game that is the part they’d be challenged to replace internally.

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The easiest comparable within the Atlantic Division is the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Zach Hyman, who is three years older than Heinen, but signed his deal on the back of a relatively similar season, production-wise. When he signed his four-year deal at a cap hit of $2.25 million a season, he had just tallied 10 goals and 18 assists whilst playing a significant role short-handed.

Danton Heinen’s first season as a full-time member of the Boston Bruins saw even more impressive production that that with 16 goals and 31 assists, albeit on a team that wasn’t sitting rock-bottom in the NHL hence the notion that they’re actually relatively comparable results.

In the seasons since, Zach Hyman and Danton Heinen have stat-lines that closely resemble each other. You could definitely make the argument that a $2.25 million cap hit is a very fair offer to be making.

Anything too much more than that sort of price suddenly puts the Boston Bruins in a major bind. With deals required for Brandon Carlo and Charlie McAvoy, Danton Heinen could now find himself looking for a new team.

That’s not the result of an arbitration hearing that the Bruins will be wanting, but realistically, if the money isn’t there, the money isn’t there. They team can’t go making rash decisions financially, as we have seen by their willingness to let Marcus Johansson move on, without so much as a fight.

We hark back to it routinely, but the David Backes deal is continuing to be a significant drain on the Boston Bruins; his production last season was 14 points behind that of Heinen, yet he is earning $6 million for the next two years and potentially preventing a new deal being signed.

Whilst we shouldn’t begrudge Danton Heinen using his rights as a player to seek arbitration, the end result could be damaging to a Boston Bruins’ roster that was well-rounded enough to make the Stanley Cup Final this past season.