Oh, Thank Goodness

It was an eleventh-hour deal but it still got done and that's what matters. The Ottawa Senators have managed to avoid arbitration with their number 1 goaltender Ray Emery just hours before his hearing was set to begin:

'It was a difficult negotiation,'' Emery's agent J.P. Barry told The Canadian Press. ''Bryan and I started pretty far apart but we worked hard to close the gap and were able to do so this morning after Bryan was able to speak with Mr. Melnyk.''

The 24-year-old Emery was a restricted free agent. He will earn $2.75 million next season, $3.25 million in 2008-09 and $3.5 million in 2009-10, for an average of $3.16 million a season, a big raise over the $925,000 he made last season.

He will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the contract.

Emery emerged as Ottawa's starting goalie last season and led the team to a Stanley Cup final appearance. He went 33-16-6 in the regular season with a 2.47 goals-against average and .918 save percentage. He was 13-7 with a 2.26 GAA and .907 save percentage. Emery has started all 30 of Ottawa's playoff games post-lockout.

The $3.16-million average for Emery eclipses the $2.66-million average salaries from Buffalo's Ryan Miller (signed last summer) and Carolina's Cam Ward and is less than the $4.25-million, one-year deal signed by New York Rangers starter Henrik Lundqvist.

Reports are that Emery turned down a contract that averaged $4 million per season so maybe the contentious issue was that of length and bonuses.

Update: The spreadsheet has been updated with Christoph Schubert's salary number, which averages out to be $833,333 per year (3-year deal worth $2.65 million in total). The red figure for Chris Kelly of $1,046,000 is a hypothetical amount. I don't expect him to come in for over $2 million, and $1.046 million was the number Muckler had previously offered Saprykin.



According to the math, it puts the Senators at just over $44 million. Kelly and Schubert shouldn't cost more than $2 million - $2.5 million which means the Senators could be looking at adding one or two more players. The Senators ought to look at adding at least another two forwards to the mix, assuming that re-signing Lawrence Nycholat was meant to replace Tom Preissing, the Senators should be set on the blue-line although understandably, another bigger, more physical d-man would also help. If the Senators can get another forward signed, Schubert could drop back to D.

However, it is clear that Murray's job isn't finished yet as there are still at least two holes to fill in the forward position. Depending on how he does at camp, Hennessey could be looking at staying on with the big club permanently and it is expected that Nick Foligno should challenge for a spot next year, but there's also no guarnatee on how much playing time Brian McGrattan will see.

UPDATE: That's another one crossed off the list as TSN is reporting that the Senators have re-signed RFA Christoph Schubert to a new 3-year deal. Financial terms were not disclosed but I would probably peg it definitely at either $1 million or under. Perhaps somewhere in the $800,000 - $975,000 mark.


^{Parts cross-posted to Scarlett Ice}

Emery, Avery, Cammalleri, Roy, Ryder, Hunter, Stempniak

Arbitration is a time of year where fans hold their breath that one of their favourite, usually good, players doesn't demand too much and sign for more than he's worth.
If you want a relevant example of how arbitration affects the new NHL and its salary cap, see JP Dumont with the Buffalo Sabres at this exact same time last year.

The French-Canadian was awarded a one-year contract worth an estimated $2.9 million by a salary arbitrator after coming off a decent season while scoring 20 goals and adding the same number for assists in 54 games.

The number was grand, grand in many ways since a checking-line player is hardly worth anything over $2 million these days, so, the Sabres exercised their right to reject a contract and let Dumont walk to free-agency.
Dumont eventually signed for about 700K less with the Nashville Predators and scored 66 points with the last season, a career high.

That's only one and perhaps the best example of salaries awarded that affect a team's ability to keep him under the salary cap.

EMERY UPDATE: TSN reports that the Senators and Ray Emery have avoided salary arbitration with them agreeing to a 3-year contract worth $9.5 million (or almost $3.2 million per season)
(Hat tip to Sherry over at Scarlett Ice)
Now the question remains, what will they do with Martin Gerber?

This year promises to have some pretty big surprises on both sides, starting with the Senators' Ray Emery, coming off a career year all while carrying Ottawa to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in the modern era.

Emery had 33 wins, a 2.47 GAA and a .918 SPCT after overtaking Martin Gerber as the team's number one heading into December.
He made $925,000 last season and is looking for a hefty raise, that will likely come easily.
Reports out of Ottawa suggest that the only way Murray will be able to effectively sign Emery and have room to re-sign Jason Spezza (RFA), Dany Heatley (UFA), Antoine Vermette (RFA), Patrick Eaves (RFA) and Wade Redden (UFA) next summer is if he moves backup goalie Martin Gerber and his $3.7 million salary, which will be a difficult task.

All in all, Emery should get between $2.5 and $4 million next season, as arbitrators have proven they're still in love with the old NHL way of doing these things.

His agent, J.P. Barry is rumoured to be negotiating a multi year contract for Emery, and should Murray not be able to dump Gerber, he could have no choice and let Emery walk to free-agency, deeming his potential hefty salary too high for a goalie of his current status.
The trading of Peter Schaefer last week to the Bruins cleared up significant cap space over the next few seasons for Ottawa, in order to attempt to keep Emery and the crop of 2008 free-agents mentioned above.

Gerber finished the season off well for Ottawa and put up the exact same GAA and SPCT% he had with Carolina 2 seasons ago, all while maintaining a total of 15 wins.
The Swiss-born keeper is capable of a lot more than a backup role, and many fans feel that way; as we saw last season, if Gerber is not confident, he is weak...VERY weak...so Sens fans better be hoping that if Emery is indeed let go (and come on, it's not the end of the world) that Gerber finds his confidence and uses it like he did with Canes 2 seasons ago, and like he did when he shut out Team Canada with an amazing 47-save performance at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino.

Among others, Buffalo's Derek Roy could command a Nathan Horton type salary, according to the Ghost, who has a great post handling the fact that Roy could indeed be an equal to the Panther forward.
Roy, an impressive +37 last season, is the team's projected no.1 centre next season, with Bufalo GM Darcy Regier losing both Chris Drury and Daniel Briere to the Rangers and Flyers respectively via free-agency.
The Sabres are expected to push hard to sign Roy and don't expect another JP Dumont-type situation to unfold this time around, as whatever the arbitrator awards Roy, Regier will pay with open arms.
He had a career-year as the team's 3rd line centre, scoring 21 goals and adding 42 assists for a total of 63 points in 75 contests.

On the other side of town, Sean Avery and Marcel Hossa's cases are still unresolved, with both wanting and deserving raises from the salaries they had last season.
Avery, being the most deserving, made $1.1 million last season and could command a salary upwards of $2.5 million in arbitration, while Marcel Hossa is second-rate and definitely not a priority in this case.

The Rangers may indeed sacrifice Hossa, should his contract be too expensive for their taste, and focus on signing the hard-hitting and well-hated Avery instead.
Avery, who came over in a deal from the Los Angeles Kings at mid-season, scored 18 goals and added 30 assists with LA and New York, 20 of those points coming in 29 contests after his trade to the Rangers, making his value as a checking-line player skyrocket.

Speaking of LA, the Kings will have a difficult case in Mike Cammalleri.
Coming off a career year, the 25-year old tallied 34 goals and added 46 assists to lead the Kings, his salary projects to be upwards of $4 million, and his best-case scenario would likely be a salary of $5 million, though, at this point of his career, the Kings better hope it's a multi-year deal for that kind of money.

The Islanders have scoring centre Trent Hunter heading into arbitration, and the veteran shouldn't be too expensive.
Coming off a 20-goal and 35 point campaign, Hunter is likely to get a deal within the likes of $1 and $1.8 million.

Michael Ryder, a potential 40, maybe even 50 goal scorer for the Canadiens, is scheduled for arbitration on July 30, same as Sean Avery.
Ryder had an up-and-down season in Montreal, potting 30 goals and adding 28 helpers for a respectable 58 points.
The downside? A horrendous -25 rating and a decrease in consistency could hurt Ryder's value when it comes time to talk turkey.
Still relatively young at age 27, Ryder still has the time to fully break out into the 40-goal scorer he was projected to become, although he may prove to be pricey when this is all said and done.
Ryder made $2.2 million last season and is expected to once again, get a raise from that.
Often criticized of being a one-dimensional player, Ryder actually evolved into a penalty-killing role last season despite putting up a +/- rating of -25.
He is a key component of Montreal's already borderline offence, a salary of $3 million sounds reasonable.

I have long suggested the Canadiens should do a kind of sign-and-trade of Ryder in order to acquire that star player the Canadiens have longed for, someone like Patrick Marleau.
Besides Ryder, there isn't anyone the Habs could realistically trade that has good value without jeopardizing the club's future (Carey Price, Chris Higgins, Andrei Kostitsyn, Guillaume Latendresse).

Lee Stempniak, the 24-year old scoring sensation out of Darthmouth University in New Hampshire, is the kind of player the Blues need to lock up for a long time.
Stempniak scored 27 goals and 52 points in only his second pro NHL season!
He will likely get a deal done that will pay him between $2 and $3.5 million

And that's all folks, hope you enjoyed BBeR's preview of this year's arbitration saga, which is shaping up to be an intriguing one in many ways!
This took me a long time to write, with only statistics and salary numbers being available to me, I have yet to find a decent list/preview of all this out there, so I decided to write one up myself!

-In goalite news, the Blues have acquired goalie Hannu Toivonen from the Boston Bruins in exchange for centre Carl Soderberg.
Toivonen had a terrible 2005-2006 campaign after a spectacular rookie season, a trade was expected with the B's acquisition of Manny Fernandez from the Wild.

-Some more goalie talk, Brian Boucher is heading back to where he started, signing a one-year minor-league deal with the Flyers' farm club, the Philadelphia Phantoms.

Cheers!

--BBR

Lundqvist, Rangers Agree to One-Year Deal

Updated:

Various media outlets are reporting the deal is actually worth $4.25 million, not the $2.5-3 million that had been speculated. This undoubtedly complicates matters for the Rangers, and almost certainly guarantees that one or two players will have to be moved to clear out cap space. This also ends any, albeit remote, chance there was of the Rangers landing Souray.

From newyorkrangers.com:

New York Rangers President and General Manager Glen Sather announced today that the club has agreed to terms with restricted free agent goaltender Henrik Lundqvist.

Lundqvist, 25, appeared in 70 games with the Rangers this past season, posting a 37-22-8 record, along with a 2.34 goals against average and a .917 save percentage. Among league leaders, he ranked fourth in minutes played (4,108), tied for sixth in shutouts (five), ranked eighth in goals against average (2.34), tied for eighth in wins (37), and tied for ninth in save percentage (.917). His 37 wins marked the second-most victories in one season by a Ranger goaltender (Mike Richter, 42).

In his last 44 games of the 2006-07 regular season, Lundqvist posted a 1.85 goals against average and a .931 save percentage, and surrendered two goals or fewer 33 times over the span. He was named the NHL's "First Star" of the week twice in a three-week period in March and was selected as a finalist for the Vezina Trophy for the second consecutive season.

In the 2007 playoffs, Lundqvist posted a 6-4 record, along with a 2.07 goals against average and a .924 save percentage in 10 games.

The 6-1, 195-pounder has appeared in 123 career games with the Rangers, posting a 67-34-17 record, along with a 2.29 goals against average and a .919 save percentage. In postseason play, he has appeared in 13 career contests, posting a 6-7 record, along with a 2.58 goals against average and a .905 save percentage. In 2005-06, Lundqvist set the Rangers rookie record for wins in a season (30) and now has more wins (67) over his first two NHL seasons than any netminder in team history.

Prior to joining the NHL ranks, Lundqvist appeared in 144 career contests with the Frolunda Indians of the Swedish Elite League, posting a 2.02 goals against average. In 2004-05, he appeared in 44 games with Frolunda, posting a 33-8-3 record, along with a 1.79 goals against average and a .936 save percentage. He ranked among the Swedish Elite league goaltending leaders in several categories, including: wins (33, first), goals against average (1.79, first), save percentage (.936, first), shutouts (6, first) and minutes played (2641:51, second).

In the 2004-05 postseason, Lundqvist turned in a record of 12-2 with a 1.05 goals against average, a .962 save percentage and six shutouts. His efforts led Frolunda to the Swedish Elite League championship for the second time in three years. Following the postseason, he was named to the Swedish media all-star team for the third consecutive season, earned league MVP honors and was tabbed with Sweden's best player award.

Lundqvist captured his first Swedish Elite League championship with Frolunda in 2002-03, posting a 2.11 goals against average in 12 postseason contests en route to the title. While playing for Frolunda's junior team in 2001-02, he was named the League's Junior of the Year.

Internationally, Lundqvist has represented Sweden in several tournaments. Most recently, he captured a gold medal at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy where he recorded a 5-1 record, along with a 2.33 goals against average and a .907 save percentage in six games. As a member of Team Sweden at the 2004 World Championships, he backstopped the club to a silver medal finish. In the tournament, he appeared in all eight contests, posting a 5-1-2 record, along with a 1.64 goals against average and a .925 save percentage.

Following the tournament, he was named to the Media All-Star team, as well as one of Sweden's top three players for the Championships. He also represented his country at the 2004 World Cup of Hockey and the 2005 World Championships. In addition, Lundqvist participated in the 2001 and 2002 World Junior Championships and the 2003 World Championships.

The Are, Sweden native was the Rangers seventh selection, 205th overall, in the 2000 NHL Entry Draft.

Report: Lundqvist Deal Could Come Today

John Dellapina of the New York Daily News reports that with the Rangers finalizing the deal to keep Brendan Shanahan in New York for one more season, the Blueshirts immediate focus is on inking Franchise Goaltender Henrik Lundqvist to a one-year deal to avoid salary arbitration. Dellapina reports that, much like Shanny, King Henrik is being flexible in negotiations with the Rangers to help the team navigate the salary cap. Thanks to that flexibility, the report states:

an announcement could come as early as this morning that Lundqvist has agreed to a one-year contract worth approximately $2.5 million. The deal is essentially a bridge to next season and beyond that will enable Lundqvist and the club to avoid their scheduled July 24 salary arbitration case while keeping the Rangers from having to unload players to get under this season's $50.3 million salary cap.

The 25-year-old goaltender will get his big-money, long-term deal soon enough. After Jan. 1, 2008, the Rangers can sign Lundqvist to a lucrative and lengthy extension for 2008-09 and beyond without affecting their '07-08 salary-cap situation. And they almost certainly will do so.


Allowing Lundqvist to hit the market next summer as a restricted free agent would be dangerous, as rival clubs might line up to make him whopping offers that would present the Rangers with this no-win option: match the offer sheet and crush themselves against the salary cap or let their franchise goaltender go for draft-pick compensation unlikely to ever produce a comparable player.

Signing Lundqvist to another short-term deal after this one also would be pointless as he could become an unrestricted free agent following the 2008-09 season.

It appears as though Sather is buying some time here to clear salary and also avoid the wounds that can be opened during salary arbitration. This is a smart move, and I hope they get this taken care of as soon as Dellapina suggests. While I liked the Gomez and Drury moves for a variety of reasons, the moves can't really be judged until we see what the true cost will be in terms of salary cap sacrifices. If players like Cullen and Mara are moved and replaced by kids like Staal and Dubinsky, then these big free agent singnings were well worth it. However, if these moves ever cost them the cap maneuverability to keep King Henrik on Broadway long term, then these moves would be a disaster. I don't see that happening. Both sides want to make this work, and I think they will be able to get a one-year deal done in short order and then a long-term deal done sometime next year.