Please Let it be So!

Ray Emery's arbitration hearing was set for today and thanks to some obsessive refreshing of TSN.ca, there may be a chance where they can avoid it at the 11th hour:

TSN has learned that the Ottawa Senators and goaltender Ray Emery have avoided salary arbitration by reaching a last minute, three-year contract agreement worth $9.5 million. It is a substantial raise from the $925,000 he earned last season.

Emery is coming off a career season as he replaced Martin Gerber as the number one man between the pipes for the Senators. He helped lead the team to their first Stanley Cup finals appearance in modern history. Emery was 33-16-6 in 58 regular season games with a goals-against-average of 2.47. During the playoffs he was 13-7 with a 2.25 goals-against average.

That works out to be around $3.166666666666 million per season, which is comparable to Cam Ward's contract. Emery was a hard guy to position on the market since technically a) you don't get to the cup final by being a schlump and b) even so, not many people would say he's a top 10 goalie yet.

I hope the deal can get done and arbitration can be avoided so as to not have any hurt feelings and cries of: "You said you were my best friend!". The Senators also have RFAs Chris Kelly and Christoph Schubert to worry about but I suspect the attention should shit to retaining Dany Heatley to a new contract as he is set to become UFA next season.

Which means the future cap situation for the Senators looks a little bleak and I know Uncle Eugene is a gajabillionaire but he's also a businessman and I'd rather not the Senators turn into a Frankenteam with all these expensive players like the Rangers [because frankly, who wants to be like the Rangers?]. But keeping the core group would mean a lot of the players taking discounts. And they would do that right? I mean people like playing in Ottawa, right? What's not to love? Right? ...Right?

^{Cross-posted to Scarlett Ice}