Placed on waivers by the Flyers
yesterday, winger Andreas Nodl has been claimed by the Carolina
Hurricanes. The 24-year-old struggled to find ice time with the Flyers
this year, and yesterday, Paul Holmgren said he was waived to gauge
interest in him. Interest affirmed, Nodl is now property of the new Kirk
Muller regime in Raleigh.
Nodl's sudden departure after an oddly worded explanation of why he
was placed on waivers bears a closer look, but not one that will yield
any substantive answers.
Nodl beat out Bill Guerin
for a roster spot out of camp last season and got off to a solid enough
start, scoring 6 goals in his first 14 games. His production tapered off
though, and despite surviving the off-season purge that saw massive
turnover in the Flyers' forward lines, Nodl has played in just 12 games
this season (0 G, 1 A). Among the off-season additions are a handful of
young players that command more ice time, and he simply hasn't impressed
in the games and shifts he's been given. There's still time for Nodl to
develop as a solid NHLer though, and Carolina's not the worst place for
him to find his groove as there should be more playing time available.
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Per CapGeek, Nodl's departure clears a cap hit of $845,000 from the
current season's books, as well as 2012-2013. When Blair Betts was
waived and claimed by the Canadiens, we wondered how he wasn't worth
some sort of exchange, even a late-round pick. We later found out Betts
was pretty damaged, and he's since been returned to the Flyers. With the
waiving and immediate claiming of Nodl by the 'Canes, we're again a
little curious as to whether the player had any trade value. I'd like to
think that the level of interest was gauged before he was waived, since
if there is indeed interest, it's a bit too late to find out after
you've waived the player. Perhaps Homer had already called around and
been told no one would be giving up anything for him, but there'd be
interest in Nodl for free?
Who knows. The Betts situation was a good example that there's often
more going on behind the scenes than we ever hear about. There's at
least a chance that Homer knew full well he'd lose Nodl, perhaps having
already tried unsuccessfully to get anything back for him, and
yesterday's comments to the press were merely a poorly parsed but
player-friendly explanation that the team was saying goodbye.
The question now is what if anything the Flyers will do with the cap
space freed up by Nodl's departure and placing Chris Pronger and
Andreas Lilja on LTIR yesterday.