Kirill Marchenko Was Ready to Fly to Toronto for the Hearing, Agent Says

Kirill Marchenko #86 of the Columbus Blue Jackets (Photo by Jason Mowry/Getty Images)

Kirill Marchenko signed a three-year, $11.55 million contract with the Columbus Blue Jackets on Sunday, with an average annual value of $3.85 million. The 21-year-old forward had a salary arbitration hearing scheduled for Wednesday.

"We considered various options and eventually decided the three-year deal was best," Dan Milstein, the player's agent, told RG. 

"We considered various options and eventually decided the three-year deal was best," Dan Milstein, the player's agent, told RG. "The contract will expire a year before Kirill becomes an unrestricted free agent, and he can negotiate his terms. Kirill will be the same age as [Nikita] Kucherov, [Andrei] Vasilevsky, [Ilya] Sorokin, and [Mikhail] Sergachev when they signed their long-term deals. Marchenko will be 26."

Marchenko set NHL career highs in goals (23), assists (19), and points (42) in 78 games last season.

"We have an excellent working relationship with [general manager] Don Waddell," Milstein said. "We've been working together for around ten years now. He's new to Columbus, so negotiations took longer than usual as he needed time to catch up."

"We had tickets for Kirill to fly to Toronto on Monday. 

"All things considered, this is the most appropriate term and amount for the contract," the agent continued. "We had tickets for Kirill to fly to Toronto on Monday. We have been preparing for the arbitration hearing. All hockey players are generally more optimistic than pessimistic. However, we have also been preparing for the hearing. We prepared a big file with 55 pages of information that we were ready to present there."