Quick follow-up from yesterday’s brouhaha: goaltender Ty Conklin has cleared waivers, as of noon today, and has been assigned to the Grand Rapids Griffins of the American Hockey League.
You likely won’t be seeing Conklin in Detroit again — he’d have to clear re-entry waivers to be called back up to the parent club. If a player were to be picked up off of re-entry waivers, the claiming team would only be responsible for half of his salary and cap hit (the original team, in this case – Detroit, would be responsible for the other half). When the regular season ends and the playoffs begin, those rules go out the window, so expect Conklin back as a Black Ace. Unless the Griffins are in the playoffs, too, which — sadly — doesn’t look too possible at the moment.
If someone had claimed Conklin over the past 24 hours, his contract would have come off of the books. Currently, the Wings are at the limit 50 contracts, and would need to lose one (or more ) to complete a trade at next Monday’s deadline. Something to keep in mind is that unless players (prospects included) are going the other way, the Red Wings are not able to make any trades or acquisitions of any kind. Trading draft picks won’t cut it this year.