THN.com Blog: Heatley grievance holds no water

Dany Heatley demanded out of Ottawa in the summer and now has 17 points in 15 games for San Jose. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

Ken Campbell
2009-11-04 11:35:00

It’s probably safe to say Dany Heatley isn’t tossing and turning at night over the grievance filed against him by Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk.

And he shouldn’t be because all indications are Melnyk’s grievance is nothing more than a hissy fit by a rich guy who is upset because he didn’t get his own way.

As you might recall, unless of course you spent the summer on another planet, Heatley requested/demanded the Senators trade him, then had the temerity to invoke his no-trade clause when the Senators had a deal worked out with the Edmonton Oilers. And because Heatley was still Senators property on July 1, they were forced to pay him a $4 million signing bonus, money that Melnyk now wants to try to get back.

All of which makes Heatley a self-indulgent jerk.

But the fact remains Heatley did absolutely nothing that was in breach of the contract he signed in good faith with the Senators the year before. Nowhere in a standard player’s contract does it say a player cannot request or demand a trade and it’s not as though the Senators had to accommodate him. They could have told Heatley to either play for them or sit at home and rot for the first half of the season and miss out on a chance to play in the Olympics.

Heatley negotiated a no-trade clause into the contract and invoked it when the Senators attempted to deal him to the Oilers. Heatley was paid a $4 million signing bonus that he negotiated into the deal and happily took the money before being dealt by the Senators. Despite the trade demand, Heatley showed up for training camp and was prepared to do everything required of him until a trade could be worked out, which it was.

Where exactly was the breach of contract here? There wasn’t one on Heatley’s part and deep down Melnyk probably knows it. This is not a case of Alexei Yashin here. Yashin clearly breached a contract he had signed when he sat out the 1999-00 season and when he came back, the Senators successfully argued Yashin still owed them that year on his contract. Heatley did nothing of the sort.

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It’s interesting that Melnyk is staking his claim to the moral high ground here, isn’t it? After all, isn’t he the same guy whose team signed Marian Hossa to a multi-year contract one day, then traded him to Atlanta for Heatley the next?

The NHL acknowledges the grievance has been filed, but has had nothing to say about it. What that tells this corner is the NHL knows a breach of contract when it sees one and is distancing itself from this whole thing because it knows Melnyk has absolutely no chance of winning.

Those close to the situation maintain Melnyk will have to take his place in the grievance line behind all the other ones that are pending and it will be a year or more before he is even heard. It’s more likely, at some point, Melnyk will be convinced by the league and others he doesn’t have a shred of a case here and will quietly drop it before it ever sees the light of day.

And that’s as it should be because Heatley has been guilty of a lot of things, but breach of contract is not one of them.

Ken Campbell, author of the book Habs Heroes, is a senior writer for The Hockey News and a regular contributor to THN.com. His blog will appear Wednesdays and Fridays and his column, Campbell's Cuts, appears Mondays.

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COMMENTS (15)

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singollo Posted
(2009-11-05 12:29:22)

@Aoystreck...your analogy to the "garage contractor" is interesting, but slightly flawed. Extending your analogy, the contractor does in fact have the right to make the crazy request you suggest - people and companies request changes in contracts all the time. However, my response would obviously be "No way. You build my garage as agreed, or I sue for breach of contract." This leads to the hole in your logic: the assumption that the Sens HAD to trade Heatley, simple because he asked. By no means did they have to do so; they had every right to tell him, as Campbell states, "either play for them or sit at home and rot". Campbell actually makes a very salient point in that this being an Olympic year, the Sens actually held the leverage. Heatley wants to play for Canada: it behooves him to play this year at as high a level as possible to guarantee his inclusion on the squad. So when it comes down to it; Heatley did NOT breach his contract: he merely asked for a change to it, and the Sens were dumb enough to grant it. This is really where contracts become preposterous in pro sports: in the real world, as I said, people and companies ask for contract changes all the time; it is only in pro sports where absurd requests like Heatley's are granted. Until teams stop caving, players will keep asking.

sweetpea Posted
(2009-11-05 11:02:57)

dwebert, Hossa also sign a contract to play with Ottawa, and then found himself in Atlanta. Under your logic, wouldn't that also be a breach of contract?

brian_kemp Posted
(2009-11-05 07:53:16)

As defined by the CBA, it doesn't appear that any breach of contract occured. Whether Heatleys actions were wrong with regards to the timing of his invoking the NTC, he didn't do anything that went against his contract or the CBA. Melnyks grievance can be filed (a grievance can always be filed, whehter it has any basis in reality or not), but he will lose. aoystreck, you are correct in saying that the Senators had no reason to want it to go public, but you are forgetting that to Heatley, he gets to control (to a certain extent) where he goes anyway, so it doesn't benefit him (his trade demand going public) as much as it would benefit the other teams seeking his services, at least a few of whom were obviously aware that the Senators were looking to move Heatley. They could have easily leaked that much of it, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Ottawa isn't moving their 50 goal man for no reason.

glaucon Posted
(2009-11-04 22:06:18)

Ken you completely miss the mark yet again on this one. Even if the current cba does not entitle Melnyk to ultimately be able to retrieve 4 million from Heatly, don't you think putting his case forward and public goes a long way to make a case for changing the current state of ntc agreements. Laws and rules are seldom perfect and examples like these represent a chance to correct an obvious flaw in the cba rather than give a unjust situation a chance to occur in the future. This may be Melnyk's only reason for doing what he is doing. You miss an opportunity to comment on the bigger picture here and instead make a weak and lame case for dany heatly to try and defend an unpopular viewpoint for the sake of being contrarian.

aoystreck Posted
(2009-11-04 21:19:34)

And as for this notion that players are within their rights to request/demand a trade, lets just take a minute to think that through. Players are essentially independent contractors, hired by teams to perform a service for a defined term for a defined fee. If you hire a contractor to build you a garage, how would you react if, after signing the contract, the contractor said to you "I don't want to build this garage for you. But we have a contract, so you have to find someone else for me to build the garage for. And by the way, if I don't like the project, I can turn it down and make you find another." Absolutely preposterous in any context outside of professional sports. You would certainly complain to the better business bureau. Why should it be perfectly acceptible in professional sports?

aoystreck Posted
(2009-11-04 19:59:37)

chris 99 hit it right on the head. The Sens have a legitimate grievance with the fact the team had worked out a deal--with permission from Heatley's camp--to move the contract before the bonus was due. Rather than okaying the trade, Heatley dragged his feet past the July 1 payout. Even if he had rejected the trade immediately, the team would have still had a day and a half to find another dance partner and avoid the payout. But because Heatley hid out in his house and refused to just make a damn decision one way or another, he let the Senators and Oilers think the deal may still go through, tying both teams' hands with regard to signing players on the busiest day of free agency. Heatley's actions directly hindered the team's attempts to move his contract. I'm not familiar enough with the NHL "grievance" process to know for sure, but does a contract even need to be breached for a grievance to be considered? It's clear as day that Heatley breached the spirit of the contract, if not the word of it. The spirit of the contract was that the $4 million was an advance on half his salary for this season, with the presumption of a season's worth of his services to the team. While Heatley stated (later) that he would show up to camp and play until his request/demand was granted, he also publicly announced he had no intention of changing his mind, which further reduced his trade value. The team also has a case that the fact the trade demand was made public, presumably by Heatley's camp, effectively constituted tampering. I know some misguided people insist Bryan Murray leaked it, but the Senators had nothing to gain by it going public. With reduced trade value, the team acquiring Heatley would have to give up less, and therefore be a better team. Heatley had something to gain in the demand being public. The team had nothing to gain and everything to lose.

bmgarvert Posted
(2009-11-04 15:51:50)

dwebert, Heatley never refused to play....he was at training camp....so there was no breach of contract. He can demand to get traded all he wants but that is not a breach of contract. Understand the situation first.

mr_william Posted
(2009-11-04 15:35:20)

I think Ken misses the point here. I don't think Melnyk believes he will get the money back but he at least wants to try. In the best case the Sharks are forced to pay the Sens a portion of the bonus and in the worst case he has caused some trouble for Heatly and the NHLPA. The also sets the stage for the next CBA negotionation when the owners will likely try to eliminate no trade/movement clauses.

dwebert4 Posted
(2009-11-04 15:10:52)

Ottawa I mean. Sorry Canada.

dwebert4 Posted
(2009-11-04 15:08:58)

"But the fact remains Heatley did absolutely nothing that was in breach of the contract he signed in good faith with the Senators the year before" What? That's exactly the whole point of a contract. Contract –noun 1. an agreement between two or more parties for the doing or not doing of something specified. The contract was for playing with Ottowa. So the very fact that he demanded to be traded (ie refused to play with Ottowa) is in fact a breach of contract. Seems pretty simple to me.