Credit: Bruce Fedyck-USA TODAY Sports

The Vancouver Canucks lost winger Aaron Volpatti on waivers to the Washington Capitals earlier this month, but he could be back in the Canucks organization soon.

Fans who are still fretting over the loss of Volpatti might be interested in knowing about Section 13.22 of the collective bargaining agreement:

When a Club claims a Player on Regular, Re-Entry or Unconditional Waivers, and, subsequently, in the same season it requests Waivers on the same Player and the original owning Club is the successful and only Club making a Waiver claim, then the original owning Club shall be entitled to Loan such Player to a club in another league within thirty days without further Waivers being asked; provided that such Player has not participated in ten or more NHL Games (cumulative) and remained on an NHL roster more than thirty days (cumulative) following such successful claim.

In other words, if the Capitals place Volpatti on waivers and the Canucks are successful in claiming him, they can re-assign him to the minors without needing to clear waivers again. The only scenario where Volpatti would need waivers again is if he plays more than ten games or remains on the roster for more than 30 days.

The Canucks would be able to immediately re-assign him to the Chicago Wolves and get him ice time as well as work on the penalty kill like they initially planned.

Capitals forward Brooks Laich, who has been out since the beginning of the season with a groin injury, joined his teammates for practice on Thursday and might be nearing a return to the Capitals lineup.

The Capitals would need to clear a roster spot to activate Laich off injured reserve and the easiest move would be to waive Volpatti, who has seen limited action with the team.

Volpatti has dressed in four out of a possible seven games with the capitals averaging 6:52 in ice time. On Thursday against the Carolina Hurricanes, he had an assist and played 11:58—his second-highest ice time this season between the Canucks and Capitals.

Credit: Anne-Marie Sorvin-USA TODAY Sports

The Vancouver Canucks decision to waive winger Aaron Volpatti to clear a roster spot to activate Steve Pinizzotto off the non-roster injured list raised questions.

Why did the Canucks waive Volpatti when they could have placed the injured Ryan Kesler on injured reserve to open up the necessary roster spot? Turns out the Canucks didn’t know Kesler was injured.

“We didn’t know he had the broken foot [when we put Volpatti on waivers],” Canucks general manager Mike Gillis told the Province. “We knew it was sore. We didn’t have a chance to pull [Volpatti] back.”

Teams that wanted to place a player on waivers for the purpose of assignment to the minors had to do it by 9am Pacific, but practice wasn’t scheduled until later in the morning and players did not begin to arrive the rink until after 9am.

It wasn’t until Kesler arrived at the rink that it was discovered his injury had worsened. He had been experiencing discomfort since blocking a shot against the Dallas Stars on February 21, but kept playing after X-rays came back negative. It wasn’t until the team did CT scans this past Wednesday morning did they find out Kesler had more than a sore foot, but a fractured right foot.

But, wait…this doesn’t explain why the Canucks didn’t just “paper” Jordan Schroeder down to the minors to activate Pinizzotto off the non-roster injured list? The reason for this is the Canucks thought Pinizzotto could bring more to the table than Volpatti.

“We felt [Pinizzotto] brings a lot of what [Volpatti] brings but is a bit more advanced as a player,” Gillis told the Team 1040 (via the Vancouver Sun).

Pinizzotto is currently on a two-week conditioning stint with the Chicago Wolves. He played his first game since November 24 on Friday and once his condition stint is over, the Canucks intend to give Pinizzotto his NHL debut.

There you have all your answers. We can all sleep well at night.

Credit: Anne-Marie Sorvin-USA TODAY Sports

The Vancouver Canucks gambled trying to get left winger Aaron Volpatti down to the minors for him to play some more minutes and do some penalty killing work.

The hope was Volpatti would clear waivers and spend sometime with the Chicago Wolves and be able to play some more minutes for the Canucks down the road. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it through as the 28th ranked Washington Capitals claimed the winger off waivers on Thursday morning.

According to Canucks head coach Alain Vigneault, the decision to waive Volpatti was not related to Ryan Kesler‘s broken foot. TSN’s Bob McKenzie reports the decision was driven by the imminent return of right winger Steve Pinizzotto, who is currently on the team’s injured non-roster list.

Pinizzotto suffered a partial groin tear back on November 24 while playing with the Wolves on an American Hockey League contract. In order to play in the AHL during the lockout, players had to be waived by their NHL clubs and assigned to the minors, but Pinizzotto was never waived nor assigned by the Canucks. Since he sat out the entire 2011-12 campaign with an injury, he was given special permission by the AHL to sign a standard player’s contract with the Wolves for the duration of the lockout.

With the lockout over, Pinizzotto cannot return to the Wolves without being first activated from the non-roster injured list. The Canucks need to open up a roster spot to do this and Volpatti was placed on waivers for this reason according to McKenzie.

The move makes you wonder if the Canucks could have managed their assets a little bit better.

The Canucks do not play until this Saturday against the Los Angeles Kings, so one thing the Canucks could have done was to temporarily send centre Jordan Schroeder down to the minors for a day or two. This would have opened up the necessary roster spot to take Pinizzotto off the non-roster injured list. Once off the list, the Canucks could have waived Pinizzotto and as a player coming off an injury, his chances of clearing would be high.

Also, could the Canucks have traded Volpatti instead of losing him for nothing on waivers? There were a number of teams that expressed interest and the Edmonton Oilers were reportedly one of the teams interested.

Source confirms Oilers were one of several teams who had a claim in on Volpatti.Caps lower in standings, they got him.

— Ryan Rishaug (@TSNRyanRishaug) February 28, 2013

It’s either the Canucks made boo-boo or they were much more worried about losing Pinizzotto on waivers.