Trouba's Case Decided Upon

We have one of our first arbitration awards of the off-season on Sunday, as the Winnipeg Jets and Jacob Trouba sought out some help to resolute their contract negotiations.  In the end, the arbitrator took both asking amounts and met them right in the middle, meaning that the team and the 24-year old blueliner came to terms on a 1-year, $5.5 million deal.

Trouba put up some pretty good numbers, despite missing a solid number of games in the 2018 regular season.  In 55 games, he scored 3 goals and 24 points, which was still good enough to have him ranked 79th among all defensemen in scoring.  He did miss 20 games to a lower-body injury and another five games to a concussion in the season, but he was able to return for the playoffs, where the Jets put on a pretty good run.

With this signing now on the books, the Jets continue to run a pretty impressive blueline, but it certainly comes with a cost after today.  Dustin Byfuglien, Tyler Myers, Dmitry Kulikov and now Trouba on the books are coming in at $22.9 million.

The Jets probably could have used a little bit more help from the arbitrator in this case though, as they are now running with only $8.9 million in cap space for the rest of the season, they still need to re-sign Josh Morrissey and they still have some depth players to look at before the start of camp too.  The salary cap crunch may come a little faster than the Jets may have been expecting.