Ducks place Schneider on waivers: Any takers?
I am kind of suprised that no one took Schneider via a trade. Now someone will have to claim the 39 year old defenceman and rid Brian Burke of his salary so that he can sign Teemu Selanne. Question is, who is going to pay an aging defenceman in decline $5.5 million?
-Ottawa is close to being able to absorb a Schneider contract and could use a little scoring from the back end beyond Filip Kuba.
-Los Angeles: The most likely candidate because they have so much money left over and lost Rob Blake in the summer. They could use more scoring on the blue line beyond Jack Johnson and Tom "discount" Preissing.
- Phoenix: Has spent under $40 million so far and lost Boynton and Ballard in the Jokinen trade.
- Maybe Columbus.
- Maybe Atlanta.
- Islanders?
-The Blues could use some depth on defence and have money.
- Or he may just retire because there are no takers. But that almost seems unlikely. At the same time, for that pricetag, Schneider's production really dipped last season, where he was scoring over 50 points with the Red Wings the 2 previous years.
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At the same time, for that pricetag, Schneider's production really dipped last season, where he was scoring over 50 points with the Red Wings the 2 previous years.
Yeah, but I suspect that happened to a lot of PP specialists as refs put away their whistles.
Schneider was fine last year, but he did play third-pairing minutes once Niedermayer returned. He had pretty stunning results there (on the ice for 50 goals-for and 23 goals-against at even strength), and even picked up some silly Norris Trophy votes.
He's still got value, but unfortunately for him, he's not Niedermayer or Pronger. Then again, very few of us are.
So for $5.5 million-ish, he really needs to be a top 4 defenceman. There's plenty of teams with cap space that need his production.
I didn't know he was 3rd string last year. Thanks for the tip.
Well, to be fair, Schneider played third-string at even-strength. He still got lots of first-unit PP time.
And probably my better explanation for Schneider's apparent decline in production:
DET 05-06: 301 GF
DET 06-07: 252 GF
ANA 07-08: 197 GF
Aha, good stats indeed. Makes sense!
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