Pageau and Sens Avoid Arbitration

Avoiding arbitration is certainly one of the more positive things a team and a player can do, because it is known to be a very ugly process and could be taken the wrong way, if it isn't handled properly.  The Ottawa Senators and Jean-Gabriel Pageau did well to avoid this process, settling on Monday to a 3-year, $9.3 million deal, keeping the versatile forward happy at a rate that keeps the team in business as well.

Over the last couple of seasons, Pageau has really come into his own and has been a very important piece to the Senators' make-up as a very competitive, hard to play against team.  The 24-year old has been the team's most consistent player over those two seasons, used in a number of roles, most notably as an offensive penalty killer, as he has been doing well to score a number of shorthanded goals.

His 2017 season wasn't quite as good, scoring-wise, as his 2016 season, but his contributions were certainly at the forefront, as the Senators made the playoffs and traveled all the way to the Conference Finals, where they lost to the eventual champions from Pittsburgh.  His regular season tallies from a year ago looked a little something like 12 goals and 33 points in 82 games, good enough for 177th among all forwards, still very pool worthy and he still has more upside to his game.

Forwards	Cap	Defense	Cap	Goalies	Cap
Bobby Ryan	7.250	Dion Phaneuf	7.000	Craig Anderson	4.200
Mike Hoffman	5.188	Erik Karlsson	6.500	Mike Condon	2.400
Derick Brassard	5.000	Cody Ceci	2.800	Andrew Hammond	1.350
Clarke MacArthur	4.650	Mark Borowiecki	1.100
Kyle Turris	3.500	Thomas Chabot	0.863
Mark Stone	3.500	Chris Wideman	0.800
Zack Smith	3.250	Fredrik Claesson	0.650
Jean-Gabriel Pageau	3.100
Alexandre Burrows	2.500
Nate Thompson	1.650
Tom Pyatt	1.100
Colin White	0.925
Mike Blunden	0.738

The Senators are not struggling in the budget department, as the 23-man projected roster above is still coming in with plenty of space, nearly $5 million available, and they still have to re-sign RFA Ryan Dzingel as well.  If the Sens can find their winning ways again in the coming season, they may still have lots of cap space to play with at the trade deadline, which is exactly where you'd want to be in February/March, looking to expand on one good playoff run the year before