Blake Wheeler and the Bruins had their arbitration hearing Tuesday morning in Toronto after both sides were unable to reach a last-minute agreement.
Reached by phone shortly after the hearing concluded, Wheeler’s agent Matt Keator was upbeat about the proceedings.
"It went fine," Keator said. "Both sides presented their views. I thought it went well."
Wheeler joins David Tanabe as just the second Bruin to go to arbitration since Peter Chiarelli took over as general manager in 2006. Tanabe went to arbitration in 2006 and was awarded $1.275 million, but the Bruins chose to walk away from the award, and Tanabe became an unrestricted free agent.
Chiarelli, like many of his fellow GMs, prefers to avoid the process, which is adversarial by nature and can create some hard feelings between the team and player. But Keator insisted that nothing raised in arguments could cause tension in the future, and that there would be no issues from this hearing.
"It was well handled by both sides," said Keator. "It was all very professional. Now we’ll just sit back for the next 48 hours and let the arbitrator make the decision."
That ruling will come within the next two days. The Bruins then can either accept the one-year award or walk away from it, which would make Wheeler an unrestricted free agent.
Keator didn't think the next two days of waiting for a decision would be tough for his client.
"The worst of it is over," he said. "It was good. It went fine."
While arbitration cases have been rare for the Bruins under Chiarelli, Keator wasn’t surprised that Wheeler’s case went all the way to the hearing without an agreement.
"We had different perspectives on where the marketplace was and where [Wheeler] fit in," said Keator.
Within the next 48 hours, Wheeler and the Bruins will find out which viewpoint was shared by the arbitrator.
