The Montreal Canadiens and Danish-born checking center Lars Eller exchanged salary arbitration briefs, ahead of their scheduled player-elected salary arbitration hearing on Friday.
According to Elliotte Friedman of Hockey Night in Canada, the two sides are pretty far apart on their arbitration award targets with just over 48 hours to go before the hearing:
Eller (MON) requests $3.1M...Canadiens counter with $1.65M
— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) July 23, 2014
That puts the two sides at $1.45 million apart, which is significant. Obviously the Canadiens are looking to pay Eller like he's Sean Couturier or Nick Bonino while Eller's side is seeking Derek Stepan/Tyler Johnson money. The arbitration process encourages both sides to shoot for the moon as it were, so it seems likely that Eller will ultimately settle on a deal somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.5 million.
So far this season, like the season previous, all scheduled arbitration hearings were settled in advance (with the exception of Vladimir Sobotka, who is a bit of a unique case). Could Eller and the Canadiens buck that trend on Friday?
