Ottawa avoided an arbitration hearing with Jean-Gabriel Pageau on Monday, signing him to a three-year, $9.3 million extension.
Now, the club would like a similar avoidance with another RFA forward -- Ryan Dzingel.
Dzingel, who enjoyed a breakout campaign with 14 goals and 32 points in 81 games, filed for arbitration earlier this month. According to the Ottawa Sun, there’s a significant gap in negotiations with Sens GM Pierre Dorion.
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The two sides aren’t close to a deal, although talks were held with his Toronto-based agent Don Meehan on Monday.
“We’re still in negotiations. We talked this morning,” Dorion said on a conference call on Monday afternoon. “While we’d like to avoid arbitration and Don Meehan would like to avoid arbitration too ... at the same time, we understand it’s a process and if we can’t come to an agreement, we’ll just go to arbitration Friday at 9 a.m.”
Dzingel played last season on a one-year, $750,000 deal, and is probably in line for a tidy raise. This was his first full NHL campaign after playing over 100 games for AHL Binghamton from 2013-16, and he showed well.
The Ohio State product was leaned upon regularly during the regular season -- head coach Guy Boucher played Dzingel 14:23 per night -- and he was one of the team’s better scorers at 5-on-5, finishing the year with 12 even strength goals.
