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Re-Entry Waivers Prediction
by PuckStopsHere on 10/08/08 at 12:26 PM ET
Comments (9)
The NHL has had re-entry waivers as part of the CBA since the lockout occurred. Re-entry waivers are when a player who makes more than $100,000 a year in the AHL (this number goes up over time) is recalled to the NHL. He must clear waivers before he joins his current NHL team. If a player is claimed on waivers, his original team gets him for half his remaining salary and half his remaining salary cap hit. The prevailing wisdom is that if one team thinks a player is worth recalling, so will another team in the league if he is available at half price. Therefore, you are highly unlikely to get any player through re-entry waivers successfully, so don’t even try. This led to the Los Angeles Kings leaving Jason LaBarbera in the minors for the entire 2006/07 season, even though he was playing very well and won the Baz Bastien Trophy for top AHL goalie, while the Kings were struggling to find NHL goaltending. They would up using re-tread Sean Burke and minor league never-will-bes in Barry Brust and Yutaka Fukufuji instead. I oppose this rule because it is an artificial construct that keeps some NHL talent out of the league. I have written about this several times in the past including here.
The strategy of keeping LaBarbera in the minors hurt the Kings in 2006/07, but since they held his rights beyond that season, it ensured they would keep him into the future. Today he is their number one goalie. In the case of players in the last season of their contracts, this strategy makes no sense. There is no future to keep the player. If you wish to recall him, you might as well attempt to do so because he will leave at the end of the season without playing any NHL games for you. The only concern is that if he gets claimed, you must have sufficient salary cap space to handle half his salary plus that of a replacement player.
I am unaware of any player to successfully clear re-entry waivers and re-join his NHL club. I don’t think any exist. I cannot recall any and a quick google search does not bring any up (if you have an example of one please drop me a comment). I know of a few players that were placed on re-entry waivers in an attempt to get rid of the salary (or half of it) and send the players elsewhere who were not picked, but not of a case where the player rejoined the NHL club that initially sent him to the minors. Some of the more prominent players claimed on re-entry waivers to date include Sergei Samsonov, Petr Nedved, Ron Hainsey and Sean Burke.
Looking forward, I think there will be some cases of players successfully clearing re-entry waivers and rejoining their NHL team. I think it will happen this season. I think this because of the shear number of players who are being placed on waivers who will be sent to the minors out of training camp and will have to clear re-entry waivers to be called back up. Some of the players on this list include Peter Schaeffer, Mark Bell, Michel Ouellet, Matt Pettinger and Kyle McLaren. I think teams will attempt to recall some of the players on this list (and maybe some missing from this list) although some might be claimed on re-entry waivers, it is unlikely all will be. Teams can only spare so many roster spots to marginal players (like waiver pickups) and with enough players on the waiver wire (including re-entries), some will succeed in clearing.
There are more potential re-entry players getting sent to the minors this season than in previous years. This is probably caused by two things. The lockout allowed a two year reset where many bad contracts expired and it allowed teams to sign players to one-way contracts (hence subject to re-entry waivers if they were sent to the minors) to players who were quite likely to keep their roster spots. Also, as the salary cap rises, being stuck paying half a contract on a player that you lost takes up less of a percentage of your cap space, so there is less risk in having such players on your books.
I think we will start to see players clear re-entry waivers and re-enter the NHL this season after a stint in the minors. It will not happen every time a team attempts to recall such a player, but it will start to happen. Nevertheless, it is a clause that I don’t like in the CBA. It can keep NHL worthy players in the minors.
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Comments
I am not sure about the two-way contract of Downey affecting your argument, so I could be wrong.
Posted by VooX on 10/08/08 at 11:37 AM ET
Aaron Downey has a two-way contract this season. Last season, he did not play any AHL games (but was on a one-way contract).
So I don’t think he is an example of a successful recall through re-entry waivers.
Posted by PuckStopsHere on 10/08/08 at 11:41 AM ET
IIRC, Downey was waived a couple of times in case a move was needed, but never was actually sent down. Therefore, he didn’t have to clear reientry waivers. Not sure if he had a two-way contract last season, but he definitely does this year.
Posted by YzermanZetterberg on 10/08/08 at 11:45 AM ET
I expect the Bruins will recall Schaefer a few times this year...hoping that some sucker will bite and take him off their hands. He will have to actually score a couple goals in the AHL first so they shouldn’t hold their breath, however.
Posted by kevin from boston on 10/08/08 at 01:01 PM ET
I believe that players on one way contracts should have to clear waivers to be sent to the minors, but I do not believe that they should have to clear waivers to be called back to the NHL.
The minors are there to help develop prospects, and to allow NHL caliber players to work out some kinks in their game. If a team believes that a player attempting to clear waivers can step directly into their lineup then they should be able to claim him. But if a player clears waivers to play in the minors, gets his game together, he should be able to return to the team that sent him down.
Make the process more like the MLB design, allow teams to have options on how to develop their players.
Posted by Kanuckvoice on 10/08/08 at 01:43 PM ET
1 )Puck: How would you change the current rule to also prevent teams from using the demotion process to save $$ on their cap?
2) As we see now, teams send down players for 1-2 ‘off days’ to save a few bucks against their cap. Imagine how many players/ how often that would be done if teams didn’t have to be concerned about losing a player to re-entry waivers?
Posted by Faux Rumors from Globally- Here, there, Everywhere on 10/09/08 at 09:57 AM ET
There are waivers when players (excluding those who dont have significant experience) are sent to the minors. That prevents players from being sent down in a willynilly fashion for a couple days between games in most cases. Almost all players who are subject to re-entry waivers are also subject to waivers to get sent down in the first place. I don’t think removing re-entry waivers does much to change that.
That said, I would be for a situation where a player can’t get sent down for a day or two between games to save money. That situation is pretty ridiculous. An easy way to fix that is to bill player salaries on a per game basis instead of a per day basis. Then there would be no cost savings if you send a player to the minors between games and call him up for the next game. The players who are on the roster at game time would have 1/82nd of their season salary billed against the team’s total cap.
Posted by PuckStopsHere on 10/09/08 at 10:30 AM ET
1) We like the per game idea instead of the current way in which the league divides a teams salary cap liability by the length of the season to get a cap number.
Posted by Faux Rumors from Globally- Here, there, Everywhere on 10/09/08 at 12:48 PM ET
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IIRC correctly, Aaron Downey was sent to the minors and returned to the NHL twice last season both times having to clear waivers in both directions. It should be interesting to see if he can do the same this year as he has just been put on waivers by the Red Wings.
Posted by VooX on 10/08/08 at 11:33 AM ET