Wheeler

It took a little longer than the expected 48 hours, but it seems Blake Wheeler’s arbitration award is finally official.

The second-year winger was awarded $2.2 million by an arbiter in Toronto, his agent Matt Keator confirmed. The hearing was held Tuesday.

“The decision came in the range we expected,” Keator wrote in an email. “There were no winners or losers in this case. Blake is excited for camp and ready to go.”

The amount should not be a surprise to the Bruins, or anyone, because it was expected he would get somewhere between $2 and $3 million. That was narrowed down by several reports Wednesday to be between $2.1 and 2.4.

If you crunch the numbers over at CapGeek.com, you see that if they accept Wheeler’s award (they have 48 more hours to do so), the Bruins would now be over the cap with No. 2 overall pick Tyler Seguin still to be signed. Of course, as I have rehashed here numerous times, Boston doesn’t have to get under the cap until opening night, and then the Bruins will be able to factor in Marco Sturm’s LTIR as well.

They also have a 48-hour buyout period, which general manager Peter Chiarelli said he wouldn’t do earlier this summer. But obviously he could change his mind based on how things have played out with free agency.