Well, I don't want to say I told you so, but I told you so! Nabokov was picked off of waivers by the Islanders after Nabby signed a mid-season deal with the Detroit Red Wings.
For those that don't understand why or how this happened, here's a little explanation. Once the season begins, teams cannot just simply add players from Europe or unsigned free agents according to the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). If a contract is agreed upon, the player must pass through waivers, where every team has the ability to put in a claim and add him to their roster. If he passes through waivers, then the team that signed him gets him. If not, then the team putting a claim in gets him on their squad. Why is this done? When the current CBA was agreed upon, one matter was stashing players overseas. If a team could simply sign players from Europe midway through the year, they would have to pay less for the player and get an instant boost to their lineup. This was seen as unfair, so the waivers rule was implemented.
So far, there have been a few players signed during the season. Garnet Exelby was signed by Chicago and Marc-Andre Bergeron was signed by Tampa Bay. Both passed through waivers unclaimed and were sent to the AHL affiliates. Neither has played in the NHL this year, which could be a reason why no team put in a waiver claim. They are solid NHL players, and I'm sure they will find work in the NHL next year with teams looking for cheap, experienced defensemen.
On to the players that have been claimed. Marek Svatos (Nashville), Kyle Wellwood (Vancouver) and now Evgeny Nabokov (New York Islanders) have been claimed off of waivers after being signed from Europe. Both Svatos and Wellwood were claimed after signing with the St. Louis Blues, and Nabokov from Detroit. I think that St. Louis got a little worked over with the new CBA, as there are pros and cons to having this rule in place. The pro, as discussed above, is not giving teams an unfair advantage when signing players out of Europe. The con is that teams more than likely don't get the effective players they are signing. Instead, they are going to other teams which they did not sign with. The original team signed these players for a reason. For St. Louis, they have TJ Oshie, Andrew McDonald and David Perron injured and need a forward that has the ability to produce. For Detroit, Chris Osgood is hurt until at least mid-March and Jimmy Howard is reported to have a bruised knee, making it difficult to play.
I have an idea to fix this, when the current CBA expires after next season. Instead of a player signed during the season subject to waivers, make the team signing him have the entire value of his contract go against the salary cap, instead of just the pro-rated salary that is determined by how long the player is playing for the team (if he is signed half-way through the year, the team is only responsible for half of his salary). That would control the ability to stash players away in Europe, and also allow players to actually sign and play for the team they negotiated a contract with.
In other news, Peter Forsberg is considering a comeback according to Yahoo! Sports and several other sports sites (link below). We have seen this for the last few seasons, and while Forsberg is one of the elite talents that this league has ever seen, every attempt to come back has not gone well. His most recent with Philadelphia and then Nashville was moderately successful, and you have to show the guy some appreciation with all the hard work he puts in to try and play the game he loves. Its unfortunate that a recurring ankle injury has hindered the career of such a great player
Peter Forsberg considering return to NHL
Well that will be all for today. You can follow me on Twitter at @Alexweinstein1, where I post random NHL tidbits and usually try to have nice conversations with the Rangers beat writers. The Rangers have a very tough game in Atlanta tonight. They need to come out flying and strong to be able to beat them. Marian Gaborik has to play like Marian Gaborik, and Lundqvist needs to be as good as ever in net. Good luck to Brodie Dupont in his first NHL game!
I'll leave you with a Paul Bissonette quote from twitter. He is a Phoenix Coyotes player who is one of the most popular tweeters in the twitter-verse.
@BizNasty2point0: For all the guys chirping my scarf. Ill be at the berrett jackson talking to dimes tonight while u sit at home reading my tweets.
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