Valk, Ewen Go to Arbitration for Last Season : Hockey: Lockout prompted NHL to put off hearings until after the 1995 Stanley Cup playoffs.

In a lingering hangover from the NHL lockout, an arbitration hearing today will determine Mighty Duck left wing Garry Valk’s salary--for last season.

Valk’s teammate Todd Ewen, a right wing, is in the same boat, awaiting a hearing tentatively scheduled for Friday. Such hearings normally are in the fall, but the league halted arbitration amid the labor dispute, then postponed all hearings until after this past season.

“It’s a unique situation, determining pay retroactively,” said agent Jeff Solomon, who represents Valk. “This should have been done last summer. . . . There was just no incentive for clubs to negotiate because the league pulled the arbitration system.”

Players who filed for arbitration were paid this past season as if they had played out their options--but hearings this summer might mean mean sizable raises for Valk and Ewen. Both players had the best seasons of their careers in 1993-94, then had sharply disappointing numbers during this past season’s lockout-shortened schedule for which their salary is about to be determined.

But the arbitrator isn’t supposed to know what happened this past season--or at least he’s not supposed to consider it in his decision, which must be rendered within 48 hours of the hearing.

“It’s odd, because the season’s over, but you can’t consider that,” said Kevin Gilmore, Duck vice president for operations. He will argue the team’s case. “It’s like it’s September ‘94--which is good, I feel younger. I’m still 29.”

Valk, who was scheduled to make $300,000 if he played out his option, had career highs with 18 goals and 27 assists in 78 games two seasons ago, when he was the Ducks’ third-leading scorer. Based on that, he felt he deserved a big raise. This past season, he had a mere three goals and six assists in 36 games, missing 10 games at the start of the season with a knee injury.

“If we were going to arbitration, it should have been last summer,” said Valk who thinks the NHL “has mishandled” the situation by delaying hearings until what for him is the middle of the off-season. “I don’t have a contract for next year,” he said, in part because negotiations can’t move ahead until last season’s salary is determined. Valk believes the sides are less than $200,000 apart. “I don’t think I’m even asking for the league average. I’m not getting greedy,” he said.

Ewen, who would have made $385,000 by playing out his option, had career-highs with nine goals and nine assists in the Ducks’ first season, leading the team with 272 penalty minutes. This past season, for the first time in his pro career, Ewen failed to score a goal, appearing in only half of the Ducks’ games, missing some because of injury or illness.

“This year totally doesn’t bear any consequence in the hearing. It’s merely the salary for ‘94-’95, based on the facts available through the end of the season previous to ‘94-’95,” said Ewen’s agent, Barney Harris, who added that the situation is “definitely somewhat strange.”

Of course, just because you can’t introduce this past season’s statistics as evidence doesn’t mean it isn’t a factor.

Gilmore says the Ducks’ arguments will be based on numbers and the salaries of comparable players, but the agents can’t help but think that knowing the outcome of the season has changed their perspective.

“It would be unreasonable for me to think it wouldn’t affect it,” Solomon said. Arbitrator Richard Bloch is to hear Valk’s case today in Los Angeles, and Claude Foisy has been assigned to Ewen’s case. The NHL’s system allows the arbitrator to choose any figure. Once last season’s salary is determined, the Ducks say they will make new contract offers to Valk and Ewen, who both can become restricted free agents, though the Ducks can retain them by matching any offer.