Vancouver Canucks Gameday #43 Tidbit: Should Linden Vey Play?
By David Joun
The Vancouver Canucks better know what they are doing.
The Vancouver Canucks are letting another “asset” drift into the testy waters of waiver eligibility. The NHL waivers have been packed the recent days, with Cody Hodgson, Chris Higgins, and Kevin Connauton all testing waivers with different results. Other notable names on the waiver wire this season are Alexander Semin, Brandon Gormley, and Jarret Stoll.
Then there is Linden Vey.
Linden Vey and the Waiver
It is very hard to judge Vey’s role in the Canucks as they move on from the midseason mark. Is he a fill-in for Jared McCann on the third/fourth line? Is he just the 13th forward? Is he not even that? Or is he still an asset that Jim Benning would like to work with, either by waiting for him to develop or by trading him?
Or Vancouver could simply waive him. No risk. Vey was placed on waivers earlier this season alongside now-infamous Frankie Corrado and teammate Andrey Pedan. Obviously, Vey went unclaimed then. And as the team gets set this afternoon to play the Washington Capitals, Vey enjoys waiver exemption, and the Canucks would not be risking him at all.
But that ends the moment he steps onto the ice tonight.
The NHL waiver rules in Vey’s case are as follows. Here is the effective NHL CBA Section 13.2.
"13.2 [ … ] the rights to the services of a Player may be Loaned to a club of another league, upon fulfillment of the following conditions, except when elsewhere expressly prohibited […] (b) the Player has not played in ten (10) or more NHL Games cumulative since Regular Waivers on him were last cleared, and more than thirty (30) days cumulative on an NHL roster have not passed since Regular Waivers on him were last cleared."
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For a player who has already gone through waivers unclaimed earlier in the season, should he require waivers a second time during the same NHL season, he will not be counted towards the waiver wires — unless he has either played 10+ NHL games during the latest call-up, or if the call-up lasted more than 30 days, whichever comes first.
Vey was called up on December 18th, which means that his 30-day exemption lasts until Sunday, January 17th. He has played nine NHL games, the first being the game against the Detroit Red Wings in which he netted the shootout winner. If he plays tonight (Thursday January 13th, against Washington) he will lose his waiver exemption.
This ‘discovery’, or realization if you will, comes as a very happy finding for me, and it should for the Canucks front office, too. Vancouver was getting pressured to get bodies off the NHL roster to fit under the roster limit of 23 skaters — and hence the Higgins move. Again, I stand corrected on previous exertions that Vey was waiver-vulnerable before today.
The Bottomline.
So, what to do? There is no reason to play Vey against the Capitals. Do you still play him and force him to waiver eligibility? Or should the Canucks not play him and send him down to the AHL before the 30-day limit for the sake of a valuable roster spot? Do we even care about what happens to Vey anymore? Do we just want to get rid of him by intentionally exposing him to waivers? I wouldn’t think so.
But should Benning allow Vey to hit waiver eligibility to simply waive him the next few days, that would be a frustrating “I would make a better GM” moment for me. As much as we might not care about Vey, he is still an asset, a strong help for the Utica Comets who are struggling mightily. They have just one point in the last handful of games.
Compared to other issues surrounding the club, a waived Linden Vey might be the least of concerns for the Canucks and the city of Vancouver. But it would also be a small, yet defining testimony of how aware Benning and Trevor Linden are to the world of small-asset management of the NHL.
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So what do you think? What should Vancouver do, or should have done, with Vey? Is he now expendable with the addition of Emerson Etem, or are we just certain that he will not be claimed, or do we simply not care about him anymore. Let us know in the comments, and let us see what Benning & Co. make of this situation.