Chris Stewart Placed on Waivers
In a pure business move aimed at freeing up salary cap so the team can make a trade or roster move at the deadline if an opportunity presents, the Minnesota Wild today placed winger Chris Stewart on waivers.
While Wild coach Bruce Boudreau might not have wanted to move Stewart, he summed up that it had to be done.
“I think everybody realizes that unfortunate part of the business at this stage of moving players. Every team is probably going to have somebody that they didn’t want to go, go."
Now this doesn't mean that Stewart is necessarily going to be claimed by another team and if he does clear waivers, it doesn't even mean he has to necessarily go to Iowa.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen yet. Nothing might happen.”
Ideally the Wild would want to keep Stewart in the organisation. The man is such a great personality in the locker room and there's no doubt he's a quality depth player that adds both toughness and scoring when called upon.
It's just too bad that he hasn't had the opportunity to be called upon all that much this season, finding himself as the healthy scratch more often than not or playing limited minutes on the fourth line. The fact that Stewart still has 9 goals and 4 assists this year actually speaks volumes to me.
But heading into the future, the Wild have to prioritise Kunin and Greenway ahead of depth guys like Stewart and this frees up cap and a roster spot. It's a move that had to happen.
Now we wait for the waivers process to complete and then see where Stewart ends up. I personally hope it's Iowa.
Kirill Kaspirov Wins Gold for Russia
The Olympic Athletes of Russia, what they call the Russian team after the IOC took the cop out route and failed to ban the country after finding proof of systematic, state sponsored doping programs, won Olympic gold yesterday as they beat Germany 4-3 in OT.
But how about our Kirill Kaprizov! The Wild's 20 year old, 5th round pick from 2015 scored what I'm calling an inverse Overchkin with a one timer from the right circle.
Now I'm not sure if this is a positive or a negative for Wild fans who still don't know if they'll ever see the organisation's top prospect ever actually don the green jersey.
This is because Kaprizov is under contract at CSKA Moscow through the 2019-20 season, meaning he won’t even have an option to come to Minnesota until 2020-21 season at the earliest. If at all.
Bruce Boudreau once again summed up how we all feel.
“When I woke up this morning and heard the score and then found out Kaprizov had one and three, we were hoping the KHL folds tomorrow.”
What a guy.
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