Hockey Thoughts: Waiving Your Rights

One of the main reasons I think hockey doesn't gain a larger fan base in America are some of the harder to understand, complicated, and seemingly irrational rules of the game.  The most timely, and probably least comparable to any other popular American sport, are waivers.  Hockey fans and media have their panties all in a bunch over waivers lately, since St. Louis just lost two players on waivers a few weeks ago, and now the darling Red Wings just lost goalie Nabokov to the Islanders on waivers today.  Even though the particulars of waivers are complicated, and they have been around for quite some time, they don't usually garner much attention until a well-known player or team "falls victim" to the waiver process.  Then everyone gets up in arms.


So...what exactly are waivers?  Without getting into all the technicalities of when a player is subject to them or not, I'll try and explain the process.  There are three types (entry, re-entry and unconditional) and each type has it's own rules and qualifications.  The purpose of the process is to prevent teams from subverting the salary cap process by abusing the AHL affiliate roster and transferring players back and forth in an excessive manner to avoid cap issues.  Those are re-entry waivers.  Unconditional and entry waivers exist to prevent teams from using "dirty tricks" in the late-season acquisition of players prior to the trade deadline, and also as those players' salaries relate to the cap.  Basically, since the NHL has multiple sources from which to harvest players (unlike other American professional sports) some additional procedures are required to keep things fair.  The NHL is also more apt to using their minor-league affiliates for filling in roster holes left by injury, or for conditioning stints for injured players, more so than any other American professional sport.  The only other sport that uses their minor league affiliates in such a way is MLB--but even over the course of the long professional baseball season, the MLB rosters tend to stay more static than a typical NHL roster.


Before a player can come back from the AHL affiliate team (if they are not exempt from waivers), or enter the league mid-season from a European professional league, or be released from their contract, they must "clear waivers."  This is a period of time determined by the complex rules, which is usually somewhere between 24-48 hours where any other team can claim that player for themselves.  By claiming the player, they agree to accept whatever contract the player and original team agreed upon, without any changes.  There are additional rules governing any trades after a player is placed on waivers, which usually require the player to be placed back on waivers again before a trade can be completed.  In my mind, it's kind of like a Dirty Santa game with professional athletes.  If more than one team claim a player off waivers, the player is assigned to whichever team is sitting lowest in the standings as of that day.  The player has the right to not report to the team who claimed him, but he is them prohibited from playing on any NHL team for the remainder of the season.  


Sufficiently confused yet?  I find that it helps to NOT really understand the how and why of the waiver process and just accept that it exists.  Sometimes your team will benefit from it, and sometimes your team will get hurt by it.  But everyone takes their turn in waiver roulette.  It's just one of those things that, no matter how you feel about it, has to happen.  You don't need to understand it, really, to know that it happens.  


So, why the fuss right now?  Well--apparently Nashville was really super mean and stole Marek Svatos from the St. Louis Blues a couple weeks back.  The Sharks stole another player off waivers from the Blues around the same time.  The Blues have been unfortunate in the injury department this season and desperately needed to replenish their roster.  Typically that is what the AHL team would be for, but the Blues' injuries already tapped their resources in that regard and they felt the need to bring some players in from Europe.  Detroit has also been plagued with injuries and needed to add a goalie in a hurry.  It should have been no surprise that someone would have grabbed Nabokov off waivers, particularly at the low, low salary they had agreed on.  Nabi wasn't willing to face his age or his real worth in the offseason, so he paid the price.  He's said to be unwilling to report to New York, so his season is done--both in the NHL and KHL.


I didn't even know about waivers until Nashville lost an amazing young player a few years ago in the waiver process.  It stings.  It isn't pleasant.  But, hey, it happens--just like the game itself, you win some and you lose some.  There's no reason to get all worked up in a tizzy over it.  Just because a few teams snagged much-needed players in a critical time of the season, there's no need to revisit the rules entirely.  It's no different than the Crosby concussion issue--it's high profile so easy to pontificate about all the shoulda, coulda, woulda's.  In the end, no one did anything wrong, and no one is going to die.  It's just the game.