Saturday: Halak has cleared and will be sent to the Bridgeport Sound Tigers of the AHL.
Friday: The New York Islanders announced via Twitter that they have placed goaltender Jaroslav Halak on waivers. The decision comes on the heels of him being pulled in a 6-4 loss on Thursday to Minnesota, a a game where head coach Jack Capuano was vocally critical of Halak’s performance, via Newsday’s Arthur Staple (Twitter link).
Halak has struggled this season, posting a 6-8-5 record with a 3.23 GAA and a .904 SV% in 21 games. He has been part of a three goalie system for each of the last two years alongside Thomas Greiss and Jean-Francois Berube. Greiss has had by far the better numbers this year (a 2.48 GAA and a .922 SV% in 14 appearances) while the team has acknowledged that they would like to find more playing time for Berube, who they claimed off waivers from Los Angeles back in October of 2015.
The 31 year old is in his 11th career NHL season, split between the Canadiens, Blues, and Islanders. He has a career 206-123-42 record with a 2.42 GAA, a .916 SV%, and 40 shutouts.
In late October, Halak’s agent, Allan Walsh, voiced his displeasure with the goaltending situation and shortly thereafter, the Isles made it known that Halak was available in a trade. However, they had been unable to find a taker, largely in part due to his contract, which carries a cap hit of $4.5MM through 2017-18.
While there are teams who could potentially use Halak, not many have the ability to absorb that type of money which decreases the odds that he will be claimed on Saturday. However, this could potentially rekindle trade talks if New York is willing to entertain the possibility of retaining some of his contract to get a deal done.
In the meantime, this opens up the opportunity for Greiss to firmly take hold of the number one job at an ideal time as he is a pending unrestricted free agent. It also may give them a chance to get Berube into enough action to avoid him becoming eligible for Group VI unrestricted free agency in the summer. (The threshold for goalies in that situation is 28 career NHL games with at least 30 minutes of playing time; Berube currently sits at eight with three other appearances under 30 minutes.)
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Lol
Yea, my thoughts exactly
He was so good at World Cup but couldn’t carry that into season obviously
Not sure if they could afford him but Dallas would be great for him or maybe even LA
Or Calgary
No thanks, Elliot is showing good form lately
Halak has always been a head case makes the great saves gives up the soft goals last night three out of four goals where soft a lot of money wasted on a mental case.
He hasn’t played well, but the situation he’s been put through could throw anyone off of their game. You simply can’t keep 3 goaltenders active and content at the same time.
This situation should have been resolved before the season began. Thank Snow for the season this team is having. You can’t lose heart and soul players like Nielsen, Martin and Okposo and not expect it to effect the team negatively big time. Plus once again penny pinching ownership won’t eat some of Halak’s contract so they can move him for much needed winger scoring. I have been a fan since ’72, so I have seen the good and the mucho bad, managerment ( Snow needs to go ).