So this is what we’ve learned in the last two days. Nick Kypreos and Darren Dreger both suggest that Mark Fraser wants $2-million when he goes to arbitration tomorrow:

Just an off-shoot of the Franson post from earlier, this Fraser arbitration is key to the Leafs offseason. Anything at $900k and under is a win because the Leafs can send him to the minors and it won’t count against the cap.

Three rules that people need to be aware of:

Anything up towards the midpoint of $1,427,500 which is the middle ground between the Leafs and Fraser is far from ideal. The Leafs need to win this thing pretty bad so they have the option of sending Fraser down.

Here’s my suggestion: since the team can only elect a one-year arbitration that would send Fraser to UFA where he’d be unlikely to get a long-term deal, offer him a backloaded deal with an adjusted average value of $900K that is of any length Fraser chooses. Point out that Fraser is unlikely to have a season like last year and will probably be a healthy scratch for most of this upcoming season now that Jake Gardiner is up with the big club. On the left side, the team has Gunnarsson, Gardiner, and potentially Paul Rangers and John-Michael Liles ahead of him on the depth chart.

Basically, the Leafs would be offering him long-term financial stability to keep the cap low. The Leafs have far more dollars than any other team and would be best using them. The Jonathan Bernier deal came in at about $150K above our projection and the Carl Gunnarsson deal came in at about $350K above our projection, so I’m not too confident in the Leafs’ ability to keep their remaining RFAs signed for low.

Settling this now for a low cap hit and offering financial stability is one way out. It’s not ideal, but it beats having a cap hit of $1.2-million or more that could prevent the Leafs from getting Cody and Kadri under contract.