10/15/23 1:00 PM: Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports that Robinson has cleared waivers, and The Athletic’s Aaron Portzline reports that the Blue Jackets will be sending Robinson to the AHL’s Cleveland Monsters.
10/14/23 1:02 PM: With winger Mathieu Olivier expected to come off injured reserve tonight, the Blue Jackets needed to open up a roster spot. That spot is being vacated by winger Eric Robinson as the team announced that Robinson has been placed on waivers. He has been designated as waivers/non-roster, opening up the spot immediately even though he’ll be on waivers until 1 PM CT on Sunday.
Olivier missed the season opener for Columbus due to a leg injury and with an IR placement being able to be back-dated, they were able to stash him on there even though he winds up missing less than a week of action. The 26-year-old played in a career-best 66 games last season for the Blue Jackets, picking up five goals and ten assists along with 81 penalty minutes and 178 hits while logging 11:38 per night. That was enough to earn him a two-year, $2.2MM deal back in June, one that bought out his final season of RFA eligibility while giving them an extra year of club control.
As for Robinson, he has done well in a slightly elevated role the last couple of years, putting up a career-high 27 points in 2021-22 while following that up with 24 points and a career-best 12 goals last season despite averaging less than 14 minutes per night in each year. On the surface, it would seem like someone with that production might be a candidate to be claimed. However, the 28-year-old has a $1.6MM cap charge this season and with so many teams tight to the cap, there’s a good chance he’ll go through unclaimed. If that happens, Columbus can clear a pro-rated $1.15MM of his contract by sending Robinson to the minors.
Columbus could have elected to send one of their five waiver-exempt players down with the logical candidate being David Jiricek who was just recalled yesterday. However, with the Blue Jackets down to just seven defenders including Jiricek, they decided that waiving Robinson was the safest route to take to get Olivier back into the lineup.