Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Ducks Put Schneider on Waivers...Should We?

Kevin Allen of USA Today reporting that the Anaheim Ducks are clearing cap space for the imminent signing of Teemu Selanne by putting Mathieu Schneider on waivers.

He's priced around $5.75 million, and the waivers system is a "worst-to-first" contraption (as Mirtle usefully reminds us), so the Bolts might snatch him up before we can. Then again, could they handle the cap hit?

We certainly could.

The dude's like a million years old but his numbers are still very impressive.

I vote yes.

6 comments:

Mortimer Peacock said...

Put him with Bogo?

Earl Sleek said...

Seconded.

Schneider played pretty easy minutes at even strength last year (Pronger and Niedermayer took the hard stuff), and much more PP time than PK time.

Still, in those situations, he was on the ice for 84 goals-for, and only 32 goals-against.

Take him and give him the easy minutes; you'll love it.

Big Shooter said...

YES YES YES! Some may say that Schneider, at 39, isn't what he once was.

Well... no. But he is also better than some of the guys we've got. AND we've got plenty of cap room.

Anytime you can upgrade your D YOU DO IT! No brainer in my opinion.

My understanding of the waiver is if you take a guy, you go to the bottom of the list. If the Kings pick before us (I think they would) then I would expect them to pick him up. Sigh.

Razor Catch Prey said...

I say no. He is THIRTY NINE YEARS OLD. We'd be better off signing Petr Buzek.

Big Shooter said...

Ah Razor... playing the age card.

He is still good enough. This would allow Valabik to spend another year in the minors (I don't believe he is ready), allow Bogo to be on the 3rd pair so as not to throw him to the wolves, and allow Klee and X to be the 7th guy.

We can do all this without giving up an asset for Schneider!

What exactly is wrong with that?

Mortimer Peacock said...

I really don't see what the problem with his age is. If he were 39 and bad, I'd pass. But he's 39 and STILL QUITE GOOD.

Like Earl Sleek says above, if we give him the proper minutes and stick him on the power play he could be quite productive.

If we got him we'd have FOUR quality offensive defensemen in Enstrom, Hainsey, Bogosian, and Schneider. Maybe our PP unit should just be them and Kovy.