Rangers Trade for Hossa
September 30, 2005
No, not Marian Hossa, Marcel Hossa. Just read on TSN that the Rangers traded the recently demoted Garth Murray to the Canadiens for Hossa. I’ve never been a big Garth Murray fan and I remember Hossa being a very skilled player so it seems like a good more for the Rangers.
What’s interested about this trade is why it happened. Under the new CBA, a player with an AHL contract over $75k must clear waivers before he sent down from the NHL. If another team picks him up, his original team must foot half the contract. This effectively created an AHL salary cap, but it also causes situations like this. Montreal decided to keep Guillaume Latendresse instead of sending him down to juniors and rather than take the risk that Hossa would get picked up on waivers when they demoted him they get whatever they can for him.
With Peter Worrell in training camp with the Wolfpack, the Rangers had enough coverage in the fisticuffs department. Gaining another young scorer is a good move. The only question I have is if the Rangers are able to send him to the AHL without clearing waivers as part of the trade or if they’ll be in the same boat when he gets to New York. I’d hate to see a more deserving Ranger prospect demoted just because Hossa won’t clear waivers. I also wonder what this means about the future of Jozef Balej. The Rangers seem to be above their quota of bleach blond Slovaks.
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