Vrbata and Gratton waived!

Radim Vrbata and Chris Gratton have been waived by the Lightning!

http://www.rds.ca/hockey/chroniques/264959.html

What the hell? No trade value at all?

more to the story...

http://tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=258958&lid=headline&lpos=topStory_main

he wants to go back to the Czech to get his game back...

Wow, there's a guy I wouldn't ever touch with a 10 foot pole. His confidence is low, so he's going to go home to find it?

Never heard of anything of the sort.

504Heater wrote:Radim Vrbata and Chris Gratton have been waived by the Lightning!

http://www.rds.ca/hockey/chroniques/264959.html

What the hell? No trade value at all?

Wow. Not that long ago (2 years, maybe less) we were discussing how Gratton would fit on the Sens.

Gratton is a big, big boy who can win face offs with aplomb. I'm curious...nah...we have enough 4th liners.

But if Vermette gets traded, having Gratton around to win face offs might be a very, very big thing.

Cheese and McCheese both waived in the same 7 day period...

504Heater wrote:Wow, there's a guy I wouldn't ever touch with a 10 foot pole. His confidence is low, so he's going to go home to find it?

Never heard of anything of the sort.

seriously...

what if someone claims him of waivers though...then when he does return belongs to them??

might be worth a gamble as it costs nothing if he doesn't come back...and he has so much talent

COLLAR UP wrote:

seriously...

what if someone claims him of waivers though...then when he does return belongs to them??

might be worth a gamble as it costs nothing if he doesn't come back...and he has so much talent

I was just wondering the same thing. Why wouldn't a team grab this guy and just let him play out his year overseas and see how he feels next year? They could potentially get a 25+ goal scorer for nothing and they wouldn't even be on the hook for his cap hit or salary. Weird.

No, they would be on the hook for the next two years remaining on his 3 year deal. As it stands now, the Lightning are not paying him the remainder of his salary this year, but should he come back to the team, or get picked up by another, they will owe him for the final two years of his deal.

DashRiprock wrote:No, they would be on the hook for the next two years remaining on his 3 year deal. As it stands now, the Lightning are not paying him the remainder of his salary this year, but should he come back to the team, or get picked up by another, they will owe him for the final two years of his deal.

How so? If he gets picked up by another team, they will be on the hook for his salary for the next two years.

Also, I've gotta say this: any chance we can send a clipping of that article to Gerber and something that says "Don't you wanna go home and get your game back too?"

Maybe a slight push is all that we need.

PKC wrote:

DashRiprock wrote:No, they would be on the hook for the next two years remaining on his 3 year deal. As it stands now, the Lightning are not paying him the remainder of his salary this year, but should he come back to the team, or get picked up by another, they will owe him for the final two years of his deal.

How so? If he gets picked up by another team, they will be on the hook for his salary for the next two years.

My comments were in response to:

I was just wondering the same thing. Why wouldn't a team grab this guy and just let him play out his year overseas and see how he feels next year? They could potentially get a 25+ goal scorer for nothing and they wouldn't even be on the hook for his cap hit or salary. Weird.

Maybe you misunderstood what I was saying. Tampa has waived Vrbata (whose intentions are to leave the NHL and 'regain his confidence' in the Czech Republic) and they (Tampa) will not pay Radim Vrbata the remainder of his 2008-09 salary, as he will no longer be a member of their team. However, should Vrbata: a) be picked up off of waivers by another team, then said team will have to pay him for the remainder of his contract should he return to the NHL and to the team that picked him up on waivers; b) go unclaimed by another team, leave the NHL, only to return next season, or the season after, then Tampa would owe him his salary for those years.

Now I am unsure of what happens upon his return to the NHL should he go unclaimed. If he does go unclaimed, does Tampa have to bring him back up on re-entry waivers?

OK - so let me get this straight:

If he is waived to go home, and, for example, Ottawa puts in a claim, but he goes home anyhow, then Ottawa would have to bring him up on re-entry to play him. But, if he only comes back next season, then no re-entry, right?

Better still, tell TB to bring him back on re-entry, in return for a 2011 final round pick (or whatever, just an example), we take him, and are on the hook for half if he comes back, with TB on the hook for the other half.

Either way, if he doesn't make the team out of camp next pre-season, he remains buried in Bingo, no? Seems like a reasonable gamble.

Allow me to clarify, re: waivers vs. re-entry waivers.

When you put a player on waivers, other teams have 24 hours to put in a claim. A player who is claimed becomes the property of the claiming team, and the team who waived him is entirely done with him.

A player who goes unclaimed can, if the organization desires, remain with the team (with his salary staying on the books and counting against the caps), OR be assigned to the minor-league affiliate (with his salary staying on the books but not counting against the cap), OR (and this is a new option, really) he can head to the KHL, with either the KHL team taking on his salary or him being suspended (in either case, the NHL team maintains his rights for the life of the contract but doesn't pay him or have his salary count against the cap).

Often times -- and this is something that many people don't seem to understand -- players who are waived are in fact retained with the NHL club (Khabibulin being a good instance) and, from the outside, it looks like nothing has really happened. Life continues on as usual for the player and the team. The organization has tried to give away a player, but no one is interested in picking him up. After this point, the organization has, I believe, 9 games or 28 days (whichever comes first) to demote him, if that's what it wants to do. If the player remains with the team after that time has elapsed, then the waiver window has closed. If the team wanted to demote him to the minors after that time, it would have to pass him through waivers again.

Re-entry waivers are an entirely different beast, and the big mistake people have been making around here is in thinking that, once you are waived, you have to pass through re-entry waivers to play again. This is simply not the case, and the reality is much more complicated. A player who is waived can be, as I said, assigned to the minor-league affiliate. This is the crucial factor: the moment an organization assigns a player to the minors is the moment when re-entry waivers come into play. If, after that assignment, the organization wants to recall that player from the minors, it has to pass him through re-entry waivers -- at which point, as we all know, he can be claimed by other teams at half price, with the original organization being left on the hook for the other half of the player's salary.

We need a section of this site dedicated to stuff cap-, CBA-, and rule-related. This is, like, the 4th time I've found myself explaining this point.

rooneypoo wrote:Allow me to clarify, re: waivers vs. re-entry waivers.

When you put a player on waivers, other teams have 24 hours to put in a claim. A player who is claimed becomes the property of the claiming team, and the team who waived him is entirely done with him.

A player who goes unclaimed can, if the organization desires, remain with the team (with his salary staying on the books and counting against the caps), OR be assigned to the minor-league affiliate (with his salary staying on the books but not counting against the cap), OR (and this is a new option, really) he can head to the KHL, with either the KHL team taking on his salary or him being suspended (in either case, the NHL team maintains his rights for the life of the contract but doesn't pay him or have his salary count against the cap).

Often times -- and this is something that many people don't seem to understand -- players who are waived are in fact retained with the NHL club (Khabibulin being a good instance) and, from the outside, it looks like nothing has really happened. Life continues on as usual for the player and the team. The organization has tried to give away a player, but no one is interested in picking him up. After this point, the organization has, I believe, 9 games or 28 days (whichever comes first) to demote him, if that's what it wants to do. If the player remains with the team after that time has elapsed, then the waiver window has closed. If the team wanted to demote him to the minors after that time, it would have to pass him through waivers again.

Re-entry waivers are an entirely different beast, and the big mistake people have been making around here is in thinking that, once you are waived, you have to pass through re-entry waivers to play again. This is simply not the case, and the reality is much more complicated. A player who is waived can be, as I said, assigned to the minor-league affiliate. This is the crucial factor: the moment an organization assigns a player to the minors is the moment when re-entry waivers come into play. If, after that assignment, the organization wants to recall that player from the minors, it has to pass him through re-entry waivers -- at which point, as we all know, he can be claimed by other teams at half price, with the original organization being left on the hook for the other half of the player's salary.

We need a section of this site dedicated to stuff cap-, CBA-, and rule-related. This is, like, the 4th time I've found myself explaining this point.

I nominate you as leader/guru of said section. :D