What is NHL salary arbitration? Explaining the process of settling RFA contracts by a third party

The NHL off-season is underway and salary arbitration will soon be happening, so let's go through what this means.

Restricted free agents are players that are not under contract, but don't have enough years in the NHL to be unrestricted free agents. With that, the player still can sign with another team, but the original team that had him has the right to match the contract.

Along with being able to match contracts, the NHL team can take the player to salary arbitration to settle their contract. This means a third party helps to settle a contract dispute.

Explaining NHL salary arbitration

A restricted free agent can file for salary arbitration, while teams can also take a player to salary arbitration. Once either side decides to go to arbitration, a hearing is set during a two-week span, but the two sides can continue to negotiate and come up with a new contract before the hearing.

During the two weeks, if no deal is reached, the player and NHL team will go to the hearing. In the hearing, both the player and team present a salary for the upcoming season to a neutral third party. The two sides will argue their case to the arbitrator.

However, during their argument, teams and players can not bring up their cap space or other players' salaries as arguments. Instead, arguments must be made about performance, injury history, length of service, leadership qualities, and contribution to the team's results.

Once both sides present their case, the independent arbitrator determines what the salary should be for the player, which must come no more than 48 hours after the hearing has concluded.

If a team elects to decline the decision made by the arbitrator, then the player becomes an unrestricted free agent and they can sign with any team. The salary can also be no less than 85% of his salary from the previous season, while the player can request any amount.

Salary arbitration is crucial, as many teams do take players to arbitration. Already, the Ottawa Senators have announced that they will take Alex DeBrincat to arbitration as the winger is an RFA.

DeBrincat has told the Sens he won't re-sign, but Ottawa has the right to take him to arbitration and have him for another season. But, it does seem likely the Senators will eventually trade the winger, and will likely do so at the NHL draft.