Sens at Land’s End

With Antoine Vermette’s arbitration hearing scheduled for tomorrow, things should become a bit clearer regarding the Sens’ future in the next few days. The arbitrator must announce his decision within 48 hours of the hearing, so Bryan Murray should have a better idea of his cap situation by Sunday, which will enable him to decide what to do with Andrej Meszaros. That is my fondest wish, at any rate.

I think many of us were hoping the team could come to an agreement with Vermette before the arbitrator had to get involved, but that is looking more and more unlikely as the hours pass by and still there’s no news of a deal. I’m no expert on the NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement, but as I understand it, the arbitrator can only award a one- or two-year deal. There are rules governing this, and they have to do with whether or not Vermette is eligible to be a UFA next year, and that is another thing I’m not sure about. But whatever the case, we can be sure that Vermette will not come out of arbitration with a contract longer than two years. If he gets a one-year deal, then no discussions regarding an extension of that contract can take place until after January 1.

And so a one-year deal probably means another stressful trade deadline for Vermette — something I can only imagine he’d like to avoid if at all possible.

If the Sens don’t like what the arbitrator awards Vermette, they can walk away. By doing so, however, they allow Vermette to become a UFA and end up losing him for nothing — something I am very sure Murray would like to avoid.

The team’s other option, of course, is to sign Vermette and trade him. (I have heard that it’s not possible to trade a player before January 1 after he’s gone to arbitration, but I wasn’t able to confirm that during my whirlwind tour of the CBA, which by the way is online here if you ever feel the sudden need to bring on that head-spinning, eyes rolling up in your head type of confusion that can only be induced by reading the most twisted form of legalese.) There is no shortage of rumours, as usual, about Vermette leaving town, and Allen Panzeri listed a few of the potential destinations being named for our Hot French Guy in an article in the Citizen this morning. The Vancouver Province had already done a piece on the Vermette to Vancouver rumours last Thursday, which suggested that Vermette could be the Canucks’ “Plan B” should Mats Sundin decide not to sign with them. With the ever increasing timeframe for Sundin’s decision getting more and more vague — he’s now gone from “around August 1″ to “sometime in August,” according to his agent, J.P. Barry — you have to wonder what this means to Vermette’s future, or at least to the Sens’ list of options for what to do with Vermette. Can a team like the Canucks afford to sit around and wait for Mats? Will his delay make them more or less eager to talk to the Sens about a trade? Is Sundin’s wishy washy behaviour in some way a passive aggressive attempt to screw the Sens over? You can just never trust a Leaf.

In the future, though, I think there could be one exception to that rule, and that exception takes the form of one Luke Schenn, or High King Luke the Magnificent, as I’ve decided to call him from now on, due to his really startling resemblance to Peter from the Narnia movies, which I have now seen up close and in person, having attended two of the Red vs. White games at the Canadian National Junior Team Development Camp at Ottawa U this week. Schenn was one of the players I thought stood out the most in the games I saw, along with Drew Doughty, John Tavares, and Nazem Kadri. I admit there’s a distinct possibility that he stood out to me mostly because of the Narnia thing and because of his mesmerizing good looks (and yes, I know it’s inappropriate for me to be checking out 18-year-old boys — whatever); however, I’m sure I was also impressed by his play. He’s big, he’s got a steady presence on the blue line, and, though he’s billed as a defensive defenceman, he seems to have a pretty good shot. I don’t know why the Leafs had to draft him. It just doesn’t seem right.

Tavares really caught my eye during the World Junior tournament last year, and he is extremely impressive in person as well. Doughty showed some fantastic skill with the puck, and if I were a Kings fan I’d be very happy indeed to have him in the system. Kadri, meanwhile, is someone I had never heard of before, but he’s very exciting to watch. After one rush he made, the people behind me were yelling “Sick!!” and the entire crowd was pretty much oohing and aahing. I also kept my eyes open for Sens prospect Louie Caporusso, who was a last minute addition to the roster. He was playing on Team White’s top line with Tavares and Kyle Turris in the first game I saw and seemed to do well. In the other game I went to, I thought he looked feisty: I noticed him in a few scrums.

Also spotted at the development camp: me, missing a stair and totally taking out my right ankle/foot/lower leg as I tried to get down to my seat on Sunday evening. With the leg in pretty severe pain all day on Monday, I emailed my friend the radiologist for advice and she told me an x-ray is probably a good idea, so I will be paying my doctor a visit tomorrow. Man, these hockey-bystander injuries are the worst.