NHLPA: The NHLPA has filed a grievance on behalf of Ryan Johansen regarding the Philadelphia Flyers’ decision to terminate his contract.”
Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas on the 32 Thoughts: The Podcast – Live From L.A. It’s 32 Thoughts episode, on Ryan Johansen filing a grievance against the Philadelphia Flyers for terminating his contract.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Bukauskas: “So another file that the Flyers have to sort through is Ryan Johansen. So in August, they put him on waivers for purpose of terminating his contract. They did that, and as many expected, it was this week, Ryan Johansen in his camp, they filed a grievance about it. So, what can you tell us about where things stand there?”
Friedman: “Yes, so the Players Association announced that they had started the grievance. They had 60 days.
And it’s interesting the reaction to this one. And like I said, and I said, since the beginning, the source of this dispute is that this is a player who didn’t miss games or practices when he was in Colorado. And he came to, was traded to Philadelphia, and all of a sudden it became an issue. And that was the source of the dispute between the two teams.
Now, the one thing I always say, and you have to be very careful about, is that you know, anybody who’s played 900 NHL games like Johansen does, they’re going to have wear and tear. So I never like to question injuries.
There was one thing I did say on the pod, I think it was before you took over Kyle, so you don’t have to take any blame for it. it’s solely on me. Is that one, when Philadelphia announced the waiver the termination. It was just after his wedding, and he was dancing, and, you know, I had some people say to me that that may have been one of the reasons for the timing.
And I had someone call me and he said, he didn’t think that was fair, and he was more, he was more mad at me than he was at Philly or anyone else. He said that, you know, there’s a big difference between trying to battle Anza Kopitar and dancing at your wedding. And he didn’t like the correlation. And he didn’t like that I brought it up in that way. And so I said, you know what, when I get the chance to talk about it, I’ll mention that. And he said he thought that was fair.
Like his point was that you can get injured in the NHL and not be able to play in the NHL, but it doesn’t mean you’re completely incapable of doing some things like that in your life.
So that’s what the source of this dispute is going to be about when they go into the grievance process. I always think everybody wants to try to settle this if they can.
Neither side likes an arbitrator creating precedence, they really try to avoid that. So I always think they try to settle it, but we’ll see where it goes. I think it’s going to come down to when Johansen saw doctors, what did they say?”
Bukauskas: “Right.”
Friedman: “And the answers from those doctors will determine who ends up winning or losing, or settling this particular grievance.”
Bukauskas: “Okay so do you know like what the next step is in all of this?”
Friedman: “Now they have to set the arbitration, but I’m assuming there will still be attempts to settle.”