According to the tweets of Larry Brooks Wade Redden will be waived at noon today:
NYP_Brooksie: Redden on waivers at noon.
So the biggest story of the New York Rangers offseason finally comes to an end. The Rangers — who have made it no secret that Redden was on thin ice with making the team — will waive him today at noon.
The team will automatically lose his $6.5 million cap hit, and he will be placed in the AHL with the Hartford Wolf Pack. Unless, of course, another team picks him up from waivers; in which that team would assume his contract. Either way, the Rangers are off the hook for his contract.
Redden, 33, was entering his 14th NHL season, the last two of which he spent with the Rangers. He played in 75 games in 2009, with two goals and 12 assists.
WFAN posted a good explanation of the Redden move.
Rangers president and general manager Glen Sather said that placing Redden on waivers, and thereby removing his salary from the Rangers’ salary-cap picture, was the right thing to do for the team and will help the organization pursue its goal of giving younger players an opportunity to make the roster out of training camp.
“I told him at the end of last year that if he didn’t have a great camp this was going to happen,” Sather said of Redden, a two-time All-Star during his years with the Ottawa Senators, whose scoring production slipped to career-lows of two goals and 12 assists in 2009-10.
Should Redden clear waivers, the Rangers would be able to assign him to the AHL’s Hartford Wolf Pack. He is in the third season of a six-year, $39 million contract.
In all honesty, Redden was a victim of circumstance. He was certainly not living up to his contract, but he was a serviceable defenseman making far too much money to survive. I bid him all the best, wish him congratulations on his new baby girl and hope that he has all the luck in the world in his future endeavors.
