Barrie, Avalanche avoid arbitration ruling with four-year, $22-million deal

Tyson Barrie and the Colorado Avalanche hashed out their cases in front of an arbitrator on Friday. The two sides had 48-hours to hash out a settlement before the arbitrator released her ruling. At the eleventh hour, the Avs and Barrie announced a new four-year, $22-million dollar contract, per Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet.

Terry Frei tweeted the particulars of the contract:

The are no no-move and/or no-trade clauses attached to his contract.

Going into the arbitration hearings, both sides submitted their offers. Barrie’s camp wanted a one-year contract worth $6-million. The Avalanche countered with two-years at an average annual value of $4.125-million.

Arbitration hearing are notoriously troublesome for the player and his team as each side proves why the player is and isn’t worth the money they want. Whatever happened in Barrie’s hearing didn’t cause any major rift that they couldn’t agree on a deal before the settlement.

Barrie, 25, was drafted by Colorado in the third round (64th overall) of the 2009 draft. In 264 NHL games played, the defenseman has 40 goals and 153 points. This past season, he was the highest scoring defenseman on the Avalanche, and fifth overall on the team, with 49 points. He led the Avs with 21 power play points.

With Barrie signed, the Avs have taken care of all their outstanding RFA contracts. Per General Fanager, the team has 43 of 50 possible contracts on the books and only $959,407 in cap space to work with.

As far as the rest of the arbitration cases around the NHL – there are none! Barrie was the only outstanding case left of the 25 players that filed. Everyone else came to a settlement.

– – – – – – –

Jen Neale is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow her on Twitter! Follow @MsJenNeale_PD.