The Wild has avoided a Monday arbitration hearing by re-signing left wing Stephane Veilleux to a one-year, $737,500 contract, plus a $125,000 signing bonus. This is roughly what Veilleux would have received from an arbitrator.

Veilleux can become an unrestricted free agent next summer if not re-signed by the Wild prior to July 1.

Pierre-Marc Bouchard is the only restricted free agent left.

My best guess is this is exactly what will happen with Bouchard — the two sides won’t be able to work out a long-term deal, so they’ll sign him to a one-year deal rather than waste time and go to arbitration. That’s usually what happens.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 19th, 2008 at 6:22 pm and is filed under Breaking news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.