Tiptoeing the Waiver Wire: Perrault, Tambellini, Parent, Hordichuk and Peters

I’ll say this about Mike Gillis and Laurence Gilman, they know their way around the CBA and the salary cap.

If you remember, they signed Joel Perrault and Jeff Tambellini as free agents this summer and then placed on waivers earlier this week. Both cleared waivers – Perrault yesterday and Tambellini this morning. (New Canuck Ryan Parent cleared too.) Perrault has since been assigned to the Manitoba Moose.

Because both are considered veteran minor leaguers according to section 50.9(g) of the CBA – meaning they’ve played in 320 or more games in North America (NHL, AHL and ECHL), and not played in more than 40 games in the NHL in the previous season – they are exempt from re-entry waivers. (That is, assuming Tambellini gets assigned to the Moose too.)

And according to section 13.2(b) of the CBA, because no team placed a waiver claim on either player, they don’t have to go through waivers again as long as they don’t play in 10 or more NHL games or spend more than 30 days on the Canucks’ roster.

This may seem like a minor point, but what it does it give the Canucks additional options in case they need to call someone up from the farm.

The same sections of the CBA apply to Andrew Peters. As you know, the Canucks traded Darcy Hordichuk to the Florida Panthers this morning and received tough guy Peters in return.

First, a couple of things on Peters: 1) he’s not a very good hockey player, but 2) he’s as big and scary a loose cannon as you’ll ever see in the NHL.

Now there’s been considerable debate on whether or not teams still need an enforcer in their lineup. My personal opinion is that teams don’t need to dress a Hordichuk or a Peters every game, but for certain games, they should probably dress one to deter opposing teams from taking cheap runs at, say, the Sedins and Roberto Luongo.

And that’s the beauty of the Hordichuk-for-Peters trade. Peters already cleared waivers earlier so the Canucks don’t need to place him on waivers again to send him to Manitoba. But also, he’s considered a veteran minor leaguer – he has 402 career NHL and AHL games played and played in only 29 NHL games last season (57 in the last two seasons) – and is thus exempt from re-entry waivers. His two-way contract also helps; the Canucks will pay Peters $75K to play in Manitoba and would have had to pay Hordichuk $800K to do the same.

From Hordichuk’s perspective, this trade allows him to stay in the NHL and return to the Sunshine State where he played from 2002 to 2004.

It’s a win-win trade.

(Note: I’ve been thinking about these sections of the CBA the last couple of days. If any CBA experts are reading this, please feel free to chime in in case I’ve misunderstood any of it.)