Mark Stone and Senators 4 Million Apart in Arbitration

With two days to go before their arbitration hearing, the Ottawa Senators and Mark Stone have submitted their information this morning, and like clockwork the details of the submitted salary requests came out shortly after.

Arbitration for Mark Stone (OTT): team offer, $5M. Player ask, $9M. This could be a record case.

— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) August 1, 2018

The Senators opener of $5m provides a small raise over Stone’s $4.5m actual salary last season, unlike their “no raise” position on Ceci.

Stone’s position of $9m is one of the highest, if not the highest, amount asked for in arbitration yet. The largest value awarded was $7.5m for Shea Weber in 2011, and his starting point was $8.5m. There may have been other amounts submitted that were higher that did not make it all the way to the hearing, however.

Since 2018-19 is Stone’s last year of RFA status, if this does end up with an arbitrator’s ruling he would be a UFA next July. Since it would be a 1 year contract, they would be unable to negotiate an extension until January.

Meanwhile, no deal was reached between the team and Ceci before the hearing. A deal can still be reached after the hearing, up until the arbitrator’s decision is delivered.

The #sens and Cody Ceci were unable to reach a settlement before salary arbitration. Their hearing is underway now.

— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) August 1, 2018