Breaking: Mathieu Schneider Clears Waivers

I never thought much of Schneider’s “skill set”. i think it was Burke himself who said that there really is no salary cap in the NHL as long as owners were willing to bury bad contracts in the minors. I think it’s an interesting loophole and should be done more often.

Dare we say that Marlies might have a higher payroll than, say, Phoenix in a couple years?

Nooooooo!

And notice that he didn’t have a NMC to block this move…

anyone in the barilkosphere on Twitter?

I thought because of his age and multi year deal, regardless of where he plays, Schneider would still count against the cap…? Swear I read that somewhere…no?

Here’s something from NHLSCAP.com…

In addition, 50.5(d)(i)(B)(5) states the following:
    All Player Salary and Bonuses earned in a League Year by a Player who is in the second or later year of a multi-year SPC which was signed when the Player was age 35 or older (as of June 30 of the League Year in which the SPC is to be effective), but which Player is not on the Club’s Active Roster, Injured Reserve, Injured Non Roster or Non Roster, and regardless of whether, or where, the Player is playing, except to the extent the Player is playing under his SPC in the minor leagues, in which case only the Player Salary and Bonuses in excess of $100,000 shall count towards the calculation of Averaged Club Salary;

Long story short, he still counts…

It’s the age of the player when they sign their contract, not the age of the player at the moment, that matters.

If MLSE decides to waive Blake to the Marlies when he’s 37 the Leafs would get cap relief because Blake signed his contract before he turned 35. Schneider signed this contract when he was 37 so waiving him to the minors doesn’t give the ducks any additional cap room or relief.

All the GMs were aware that Burke can’t get cap relief by just waiving Schneider, so they smartly let Schneider clear on the first pass. Schneider now has to pass through re-entry waivers – if a team claims him at that point, the Ducks have to pay half of his salary and they have to carry 50% of his cap hit too (why claim him at $5.6M when you can get him in 12 days at $2.8M?)

So, at best, waiving Schneider only frees up $2.8M in cap space for the Ducks.

If a team claims Schneider off of waivers, they can’t trade him until they offer him to all of the teams that also put in a waiver claim. This may reduce Schneider’s value as trade deadline bait.

The real problem isn’t so much Schneider’s contract as it is the dumb ones Burke signed in the iterim.

Todd Marchant at $2.5M/3yrs with a NTC and Brendan Morrison at $2.75M aren’t looking too good right now. Toss in Bertuzzi’s $1.33M buy-out and Burke has $6.6 M tied up in these three chumps.

Given how this has played out so far, I think Burke will come out looking more like Stafford than Conn Smythe.

Did the Devils already stash Malakhov and Mogilny in the minors when the cap first came in?

He’s on my fantasy team! Sure, it’s teh loser league, but hey, at least I thought of him. It’s the thought that counts right?

For the record, I still think Leafs fans should have booed Schneider out of town instead of Larry Murphy….