When the Canucks made their final roster cuts Monday, placing Linden Vey, Frank Corrado and Alex Biega on waivers, people got upset, especially about Corrado. It's not every day that teams place promising, young, right-handed defencemen on waivers. Those are the sorts of guys that get claimed. And, as luck would have it:
Corrado (TOR), Byron (MTL) and Berube (NYI) claimed on waivers.
— Bob McKenzie (@TSNBobMcKenzie) October 6, 2015
Thus, the Canucks lose a perfectly good player for nothing.
I didn't spend much time freaking out about this yesterday when Corrado hit the waiver wire. Sure, there was a risk he'd be claimed, but it seemed to me that getting angry about something that might not happen was a waste of emotional energy. My more impassioned PITB co-founder, on the other hand, had a lot to say about unnecessarily exposing Corrado to waivers, lest this very thing happen:
Corrado has been NHL-ready for at least two seasons and now the Canucks risk losing him for nothing. If all goes well, Corrado will slip through waivers without getting claimed, but the frustrating part is that none of this was necessary. This was not an either/or situation. It wasn't Hutton or Corrado: they could have had both.
With Chris Higgins injured, the Canucks could have temporarily sent Hutton down to the AHL, declared their 23-man roster by the Tuesday deadline, then put Higgins on long-term injured reserve and called Hutton back up. It would have meant carrying 8 defencemen on the roster, but with the risk of injuries, that’s not always a bad thing, particularly when it means that you don’t risk losing a 22-year-old, right-shooting, NHL-ready defenceman for nothing.
One imagines Daniel's going to be even more annoyed now that the Canucks have actually lost a 22-year-old, right-shooting, NHL-ready defenceman for nothing.
Let's not freak out too much, though. To be clear, this was a wasteful and stupid move by the Canucks. As you'll hear a lot in the coming days, they gave up an asset for nothing. (An asset!) You really shouldn't do that, and it's concerning that the Canucks have frittered away two young, right-shooting, NHL defencemen (Adam Clendening being the other) this offseason, not to mention jettisoned three right-siders (Kevin Bieksa being the other other), leaving their blueline hopelessly lopsided. (Although Yannick Weber, the lone right-sider up with the big club, probably appreciates watching his value spike.) I know Jim Benning adds prospects at a prodigious rate, but playing this fast and loose with his bodies seems like folly.
Still, I have a hard time getting upset about the waiver wire doing exactly what it's designed to do. In addition to being an asset, Frank Corrado is also a person. He doesn't deserve to have his good NHL years wasted in an organization that simply doesn't want to lose the asset. I know there was a way to keep him, but it's hard not to be a little happy for Corrado, who's out from under a regime that didn't believe in him.
"In my head I thought I was good enough to play and had done well enough," he told Stephen Whyno. "Just by the decision they made, they clearly thought that it wasn't good enough." That's a tough realization. But now Corrado gets to play for his hometown team, and Mike Babcock.
In so doing, Corrado joins a long list of players to go from Vancouver to Toronto. It's not exactly a well-regarded list, mind you. David Booth and Mason Raymond (also on waivers) are on it. Will Corrado have about as much impact as these two? It's not unlikely. This is a waiver pickup. Corrado is hardly the second coming of Nicklas Lidstrom, despite what your fan bias tries to tell you. Consider: he couldn't crack the Canucks defence corps in consecutive preseasons. Even Luca Sbisa managed to make the cut. (We don't quite get that either. But it happened.) Is Corrado better than Luca Sbisa? Probably. But a lot better? I don't know about that.
I know it looks like Corrado only got squeezed out of the opening-night roster because of Ben Hutton's miraculous arrival, but there's more to it than that. Alex Biega, the defenceman that passed through waivers successfully, mostly because he's older and smaller, plays the same side as Corrado, and the Canucks clearly prefer him. He's the first call-up. And one imagines this decision based on more than just the few exhibition games where Hutton and Biega outplayed Corrado -- Jim Benning, Willie Desjardins, and the rest of the Canucks' coaching and management had weeks to evaluate Corrado in games and in practice, not to mention all of the Comets' 2014-15 playoff run to watch him closely. I have a hard time thinking this was a kneejerk decision. If the Canucks thought all that highly of Corrado, he wouldn't be in Toronto right now.
And before you jump down my throat, ask yourself if losing the team's ninth defenceman on waivers is really worth all that ire, especially when it's rare that any waiver claim is worth more than a moment's consideration. The last time the Canucks lost somebody to waivers, it was Aaron Volpatti. People were really mad. But when was the last time you even thought about Aaron Volpatti? Or Consider Ryan Stanton, the team's most recent waiver claim. He looked good in Vancouver for awhile. We mocked the Blackhawks for letting him go for free. But then his game fell off. Did you care all that much when he signed with the Washington Capitals in free agency this summer? Nah.
Meanwhile, The most recent Leafs waiver claim was Richard Panik, last season. People loved him at first and ripped the Lightning for letting him go for nothing. On Monday, however, Panik hit waivers. And on Tuesday morning, he cleared. The waiver wire is like the lost and found at a gymnasium. It's mostly grody old water bottles. Occasionally, though, you find a pair of serviceable winter gloves. They're never great winter gloves. They're just a mild upgrade on your current glove situation. But you really only need them to help you get through the season anyway.
We hope the Leafs are happy with their new gloves.
On the bright side, Linden Vey cleared, so the Canucks still have Linden Vey. We know how much you like him.
