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A no-win situation Free agency or trade, Senators will likely lose Yashin
Posted: Monday May 08, 2000 10:26 PM
One can hardly say that the earth moved under Alexei Yashin's feet, but an arbitrator's ruling that freed the suspended Ottawa Senators forward to play for his native Russia in the on-going World Championships appears to be a harbinger of things to come. The Senators, backed by the National Hockey League, have a hearing scheduled for May 23-24 in Toronto regarding whether or not Yashin still owes the Senators a year of playing time despite holding out all season. Yet, this week they let it be known that they are now contemplating trading Yashin, a clear indication that they suspect they can't win that arbitration and will likely cut their losses and trade the talented forward. "We have another session coming up at the end of this month which will help in determining his final status," said Senators general manager Marshall Johnston. "Once that result is in, then we'll analyze that and look at the steps that are necessary because of that decision. I don't think I want to number priorities other than to say that it [a trade] is a possibility." Johnston and the league had maintained all season that Yashin owed the club another season. Their argument is rooted in the fact that Yashin refused to honor the remaining year of a legally binding contract that called for him to earn $3.6 million for the recently completed season, a season that Yashin sat out in Europe. Yashin and his agent, Marc Gandler, maintain that the contract expires in June and that Yashin should become a restricted free agent. Ottawa officials won't say it, but they are likely to lose the upcoming arbitration hearing. Players have for years sat out for portions of the season. The basic principle applied through years of this sort of thing is that the club doesn't pay for services not provided. There is no precedent through any of those cases that indicates that players owed time to their employers once they returned from their contract impasse. That the Senators are now hinting strongly that they will trade their most marketable commodity is an indication that they don't expect to win the hearing and Johnston acknowledged that a ruling in Yashin's favor would be a difficult precedent for all teams to deal with. "I guess my immediate concern would be that in the future, with other players in a similar situation, are we going to be looking at this on an annual basis? It'd be difficult to operate under those terms, along those lines." Despite what happens in a legal sense, the Senators may have made a strong point by refusing to cave into Yashin's demands or to trade the forward during the regular season. The Phoenix Coyotes took a similar stand with goaltender Nikoli Khabibulin and refused to knuckle under to his demands as well. The hard line stands did not come without a cost. Though the players both lost a season's worth of NHL money, both players were missed and both teams went out in the first round of the playoffs. Expect the hardball stance to ease this summer with both players playing for different teams. Jim Kelley covers the NHL -- and the Sabres -- for the Buffalo News. His notebook and Rumor Mill appear weekly on CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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