I don’t think we would necessarily have to wait until tomorrow since I believe the waiver process is secondary to existing roster constraints. For instance, this puts our roster at 23 for tonight’s game. So, making a trade (especially one that would move a roster player aka Hammer) isn’t precluded until waivers finish.

that this is part of something bigger that we don’t know about yet. I just hope this is Rich Peverly part 2. Come on Poile! Get us some help!

This move makes some sense. They are going to want to healthy scratch Hamhuis tonight to avoid injury. Also, they don’t want to rely on Grebeshkov playing a lot of minutes. Putting Ryan Jones on waivers allows them to activate Franson so they can scratch Hamhuis and still have 7 active dmen for the game.

With Grebs we essentially got something for nothing. Remember, he is an RFA so if someone offers him a contract and we don’t match it, we will presumably a 2nd round pick back, which is exactly what we gave up to get him. We might even get a higher pick than what we gave up. If Hammer really wants to stay here – and all indications are that he does – Poile and his agent will get something worked out (see Sullivan, Steve in the summer of ’09). But in the meantime we could see a defense of Weber/Suter, Hammer/Grebs and Klein/Bouillion with Sulzer, Franson, etc as the depth guys. A pretty good defensive corps for a stretch run.

Why waive Jones and not Belak? Jones must really be in Trotz’s doughouse, because he had fair numbers at one time, but has not had much playing time lately. I would think some team with a need at wing would pick him up.