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.

Though I haven’t posted about it, I’ve been watching all Canada’s games at the World Championships in Halifax and Quebec City. Unfortunately, Canada ended up losing the gold medal in overtime today. Very disappointing. You could see it coming, though. They didn’t play well in the third period — they blew a two goal lead — and yeah. It just wasn’t meant to be. The Sens’ own Dany Heatley won the tournament MVP award (of course), but he posed for one picture with the trophy and then just handed it to someone on the bench and skated away. It was really sad. Such a great tournament for the team and then to have it end that way.

Despite the loss, it was a really entertaining tournament, particularly due to the awesome play of Heatley and his linemates, Ryan Getzlaf and Rick Nash. Individually, these guys are all great players: they have size, strength, skill, and the ability to score. Combine them, and you get the Heatzlash, an unstoppable all-Canadian entity that terrifies the living daylights out of other countries’ defencemen and goaltenders.

I have heard a few Sens fans being a bit critical of Heatley for his awesome World Championship performance. “Who is this guy wearing #15 for Canada?” “Where was he when the Sens were in the playoffs?” I understand where this comes from, and to be honest I was irritated at Heatzza for signing on to play for Team Canada when it seemed they were both exhausted by the end of the Sens’ season. But in the end I’ve had to conclude that seeing those two pick up more “big game” experience can’t be bad, and should benefit the Sens in the long run. Spezza, in particular, should have gained a lot from playing on the fourth line in this tournament. He was praised in the media for the way he handled his reduced role, and appeared to adjust his game fairly well as the tournament progressed. If any of it stays with him, it’s going to be a boon to the Sens’ organization.

As for the people criticizing Heatley, well, I’d just like to remind them that a player fitting his description scored 141 goals for Ottawa over the last three seasons and led the NHL in playoff scoring (along with Alfie and, oh yes, Spezza) in 2007. There’s no argument that either of these guys performed well in this year’s series against Pittsburgh, but the entire team had fallen apart. I hardly think blame for the loss can be pinned on them and them alone. By the end of the Sens’ year, everyone seemed miserable. If playing in this tournament helped Heatley and Spezza rediscover the joy of hockey, then I’m all for it.

Aside from potential future benefits to the Sens, the other great thing to take from this tournament is that Canada’s 2010 Olympic team should be really, really freaking amazing. This was an excellent Canadian squad, and when you think about some of the people who weren’t there — Crosby, Iginla, Lecavalier, Thornton, Phaneuf, Luongo, Brodeur — it’s hard not to get very excited about the possibilities for 2010.

I also got to learn more about some players I wasn’t overly familiar with before, like Brent Burns and Mike Green and Dan Hamhuis and Duncan Keith, all of whom were impressive (I especially liked Burns and Green), and I got to watch The Amazing Rick Nash several games in a row, and I realized that Ryan Getzlaf is actually not so bad. Slightly bitter about that one because I do try to keep my level of Ducks-hatred as high as possible, but I suppose I can get away with liking one player on the team. Maybe the super high intensity of my hatred for Pronger balances it out.

After the gold medal game ended, I switched over to the Pittsburgh-Philadelphia game. The Penguins won the series today. The Sens are officially no longer Eastern Conference Champions. And the Penguins are going to the Cup Final. HOW WONDERFUL. FEEL MY JOY. WHOOP DEE BLOODY DOO.

My personalized Google homepage informed me when I got home today that Teemu Selanne has re-signed with the Ducks. I suppose technically there is nothing wrong with what’s going on there: technically, they just signed an unrestricted free agent. This one isn’t as shifty as the Scott Niedermayer thing in the end. But still, sitting out your older players for the first 50 games and then bringing them back well-rested just in time for the playoff run feels quite a lot like cheating to me. I don’t suppose the Sens ever considered sitting Alfie, who is 35, and I look at Chris Chelios playing all season in Detroit at 46, and I lose a whole lot of respect for Niedermayer and Selanne, really, who formerly were two of the few Ducks players not wholly offensive to me. It’s a loophole the NHL should think about closing.

So the Ducks get better (in theory; maybe Selanne will suck? Sure he will!) and the Sens continue this awful downhill slide they’re on. Ray Emery showed up late for practice yet again today. I just … hate both the goalies right now, so much. So, so much. I want to love them, but I can’t do it. Gerber at least comes to the rink. If only he would play well.

To cheer myself up, a bit of fun: TSN put up a thing today where people can pick their own rosters for the 2010 Canadian men’s Olympic hockey team, so I did that. Who knows what things will be like in two years, but it was a neat exercise anyway. I record my roster here for future review:

Forwards
Daniel Brière
Sidney Crosby
Shane Doan
Mike Fisher
Dany Heatley
Jaroma Iginla
Vincent Lecavalier
The Amazing Rick Nash
Martin St. Louis
Joe Sakic (assuming he’s still able to play)
Jason Spezza
Eric Staal
Joe Thornton

Defence
Jay Bouwmeester
Brian Campbell
Mike Green
Ed Jovanovski
Scott Niedermayer (even though he is LAME … if he “retires” again I would obviously have to substitute someone else)
Dion Phaneuf
Chris Phillips

Goaltenders
Martin Brodeur
Jean-Sébastien Giguère
Roberto Luongo

Three French Canadian goalies, a mix of young superstars and veteran leaders, no players with really bad karma (Chris Pronger was not selected for this reason), and lots of Senators. Ah yes, this team would be very good indeed. My team is also very hot, it should be noted, especially if Luongo can be convinced to cut his hair. Just put me in charge now, Hockey Canada, because I smell gold!