Boyle, Arnason, and other numbers

So, the numbers have come through on Boyle - we're paying him $525,000 this year. If you'll recall his salary of last year, this means we're saving a few bucks. That's cool. Not a big deal, but I like it when a quarter of a million comes up in that direction.

Competing for his position will likely be Tyler Arnason, one of the 3 guys I told you I don't care about. His salary seems to be $700,000, a bit above the $500,000 Locke and Parenteau are making. Reason says, now, that if we're including Boyle on our list of centers, we're including Arnason there, too (at 30 years old, we're not paying Arnason extra to keep him around as a prospect).

So, updating my numbers from the other day, that puts us at:

Assumption: Qualify Korpikoski at $1 million
Assumption: Qualify Dubinsky at $700,000
Assumption: Keep Callahan after arbitration at $2.3 million
Assumption: Bring up Matt Gilroy

Centers: Drury, Dubinsky, Anisimov, Boyle, Rissmiller, Arnason
Left Wings: Higgins, Avery, Korpikoski, Voros, Brashear
Right Wings: Gaborik, Callahan
Defensemen: Staal, Girardi, Gilroy, Sauer, Rozsival, Redden
Goalies: Lundqvist, Valiquette
Cap room: $3.6 million

Not the hugest change since we last spoke - as you can see, we save $0.3 million on Boyle and lose $0.7 million adding Arnason to the lineup. Why do we keep signing so many shitty centers instead of finding a decent one? Anisimov, Boyle, Rissmiller, and Arnason are gonna compete for the 3rd- and 4th-line spots? Anyway, don't make too much of this - we probably won't keep 6 centers under the cap, so assume that we're getting back half to three quarters of a million, we're just not sure which of those centers to be discounting.

Meanwhile, Outside the Garden's numbers are interesting - in addition to the people I have listed (without, of course, Dubinsky, Callahan, or Korpikoski), OtG brings up not only Gilroy, but Grachev, Locke, and defenseman Brian Fahey. I'm not sure where this info comes from, but I'm finding it hard to believe that we'd bring Grachev up this early given our current left wing pool (although I can think of someone I'd be willing to send to Hartford in his stead), or that we'd bring up a seventh center (Corey Locke), or that we'd bring up Fahey before Del Zotto or Sanguinetti. At any rate, I thought I'd share their numbers just so you have that perspective: subtract Dubinsky, Callahan, and Korpikoski, and add Grachev, Locke, and Fahey, and we have $6.7 million of room.

Basically, ignore most of this post - the important point is that Arnason's contract is for $700,000, and Boyle's is for $525,000.