from Adrian Dater of All Things Avs,
Wednesday in some office room in Toronto, the Avalanche will face off against Ryan O’Reilly, pun intended.
It really does look like they are going to arbitration, folks. No last-minute settlement – as often happens between player and team right before an arbitration date – is likely. Both sides in this matter don’t like it when I say there is “bad blood” between the two sides, that this is all just business and nothing more.
But I wasn’t born yesterday. If they don’t like “bad blood”, how about “perceived differences in value that has gotten a bit personal.”
The Avs didn’t like it when I wrote in the middle of last season that, hey, why not get something done with Ryan O’Reilly long-term right now, why risk going into the summer without a new deal between them and O’Reilly and potentially have things go sideways like they did before and during the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season? The Avs told me that things were good between them and O’Reilly, and that they had peacefully agreed to postpone serious talks until the summer — and gave me the indication that it would be a foregone conclusion that a new, long-term deal would happen.
Silly, gullible me. Because, here we are on July 18, with no long-term contract between Ryan O’Reilly and the Avalanche.
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