10/17: Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports that Lemieux has cleared waivers and the team can now safely reassign him to their AHL affiliate in Chicago.
10/16: James Mirtle of The Athletic reports the Carolina Hurricanes have placed forward Brendan Lemieux on waivers after fully recovering from an undisclosed injury late in the preseason. This is the best pathway for the Hurricanes to shuffle Lemieux back and forth from the AHL while making him waiver ineligible for the next 10 games or 30 days if he clears by tomorrow afternoon.
Lemieux, represented by his father, Claude Lemieux, extended with the Hurricanes last March on a one-year, $775K contract. His exploits in the NHL are well known at this point totaling 548 PIMs in 307 games in the regular season split between the Hurricanes, Philadelphia Flyers, Los Angeles Kings, New York Rangers, and Winnipeg Jets.
Carolina hardly utilized Lemieux in his first season with the organization. Lemieux only suited up in 32 games last year for the Hurricanes while being on the roster for much of the campaign. He averaged only eight minutes of ice time during those contests, his lowest average since his rookie year in 2017-18.
It’s unlikely that Lemieux will suit up for the Chicago Wolves if he clears waivers. According to PuckPedia, Carolina is close to the salary cap with only $721K in wiggle room, which suggests that Lemieux will be the frequent recipient of a paper transaction throughout the regular season.
Don’t that bite.
The statement about Lemieux not playing for the Wolves makes no sense, especially if Carolina’s cap space is the driving issue. Lemieux’s one way SPC cap hit is at the league minimum $775,000 with no bonuses. Per CBA Article 50.9(g), “Minor League Compensation, Carolina is able to write off the entire remaining amount. Any paper transaction recalls would lower the write off in the amount of NHL salary earned during the recall, reducing team cap space gain. Carolina is able to reduce their cap hit by Lemieux’s entire remaining salary because it falls below the threshold defined in CBA Article 50.5(d)(i)(B)(6). This CBA article states that the threshold is equal to the league minimum salary ($775,000) plus $375,000 or $1,150,000. In short, because Lemieux’s salary doesn’t count against the cap there is no cap space benefit to multiple paper transaction recalls.