I don't get it I don't get it!

Okay, people. Get comfortable, buckle your safety belts, and load up your freedom trays. Things have happened.

First of all, Donald Brashear apparently has some undisclosed injury again. This is largely meaningless to me, as even his apparent promotion to the second line hasn't convinced him to start throwing checks. Fights, sure, just not checks. More on the difference between fighting and toughness here, in Brett Cyrgalis's lengthy but fair Post blog entry, "Rangers Just Aren't Tough Enough." So, we'll see Brashear again whenever he shakes the old back off and comes back to punch people for another 3 weeks. Yeah, we don't miss that $1.4 million a year, really.

Now, some of you may remember a center named Erik Christensen. He was Colby Armstrong's worse half, back when they got sent together from the Penguins to the Thrashers in exchange for some French guy and Marian Hossa. Since then, Armstrong has been given the A in Atlanta, and Christensen has scored 0 points in 9 games for the Ducks before being put on waivers.

Guess what? He's ours now! Picked him right up off waivers. Our woes at center are solved! Yeah. So, we'll see how that goes.

But that's not all! In a move that seemed to say "Redden will be back Saturday," we sent Sanguinetti back down to Hartford yesterday. But, as it turns out, the move actually said "we're still holding open auditions," because today, we recalled Ilkka Heikkinen. Apparently we had our three games with a defenseman who actually checks people, and so we've moved on to auditioning another "offensively-minded defenseman." Yee. Haw.

Finally, and this is the really interesting one, our beloved Stephen Valiquette has been placed on waivers. Now, let's be clear about this: he hasn't been playing fantastic hockey, this is true. The way it was presented, the Rangers wanted not to release him, but to send him down to Hartford for a conditioning stint, but our cap woes prevented us from doing so. Before we dive into those, let's clarify what that means.

The supposed preferred option was to keep Lundqvist on the Rangers' roster. We could then send him to Hartford for conditioning, to give him more ice time, call up another backup goalie, and bring Valli back when he's ready. But, staying on the roster would mean he is still a Ranger, so his $725,000 continues to count against our cap, in addition to whatever we're paying the new goalie we call up. So, instead we placed him on waivers. The good news is that this makes him a Wolf (Wolfpacker?), not a Ranger, so he doesn't count against the cap. The bad news is he has to clear waivers, which means other teams have a chance at claiming him. So, that's why we had to do this: cause we don't have the $725,000 to kill under the cap.

And, it looks like we got lucky, and he cleared. So, welcome to the New York Rangers, Chad Johnson. Expect to get less ice time than John Amirante.

I wanna dive into the cap issues, but first, we have to talk about this waivers concept. I appreciate that Valiquette hasn't been playing great hockey, and that saving the $725,000 to send him to Hartford for a bit was a decent move. But it sets a precedent we need to answer for. Does anyone think Vali has been more responsible for goals against than, say, Michal Rozsival, to single one person out? Surely Rozsie's 1 goal, 5 assists, and -3 rating don't make up the difference. Does anyone think the $5 million we'd gain from placing Rozsival on waivers wouldn't afford us a few defensemen and space for Valiquette to go down on a conditioning assignment, with room to spare? Or, dear God, does anyone really think someone would try to claim him on waivers?

Someone is going to need to explain why Valiquette is getting waivers, but Rozsie isn't. Like, I just don't fucking understand how this works. Remember a mere 3 months ago, when John Tortorella was gonna be the coach who held his people accountable? We're a quarter of the way through the season, and he hasn't even put seven healthy defensemen on the roster at the same time, let alone actually scratching one. Come on. We're going to turn the team around by waiving Stephen Valiquette? The most devout believers among the Ranger community would have us believe that this is a move made to shake up the locker room, because Vali is so well-liked and respected among the team. The rest of us are dubious.

Right, so, cap woes. When we last visited our old friend the NHL salary cap, we were looking at $55,838,333, or $961,667 left under the cap, with a roster of:

Anisimov, Avery, Boyle, Brashear, Callahan, Drury, Dubinsky, Gaborik, Higgins, Kotalik, Lisin, Prospal, Voros
Del Zotto, Gilroy, Girardi, Redden, Rozsival, Staal
Lundqvist, Valiquette

Ugh. I know, right? And it only gets worse. With the losses of Drury and Dubinsky (and the return of Drury), we had been carrying an average of one extra forward. Be it Byers or Parenteau, it was an extra $500,000, leaving us only $461,667 (less than the minimum $500,000 to add any player at all). In fact, I don't really understand how we were allowed to carry Sanguinetti's $883,333 since Redden got injured without going over the cap. It's not like we placed anyone on injured reserve.

Anyway, you can see why we couldn't also bring up Johnson ($660,000) without sending Vali down. Even with sending Valli down, we need some more cap room to hire Christensen ($850,000) and keep Heikkinen ($875,000). So, we placed Dubi on long-term injured reserve, finally. What this means is that we are allowed to spend his salary (not his cap hit) on replacement players. Dubi's cap hit is $1.85 million for his 2-season contract, which pays him $1.7 million this year and $2 million next year. So, by my math:

$961,667 of cap space back then
+ $725,000 for Valiquette being placed on waivers = $1,686,667
+ $1.7 million for Dubinsky going on LTIR = $3,386,667
(Sanguinetti is zero sum, he was up and then back down)
- $500,000 for Parenteau = $2,886,667
- $660,000 for Johnson = $2,226,667
- $875,000 for Heikkinen = $1,351,667
- $850,000 for Christensen = $476,667

Right back down to just under the NHL minimum salary remaining in the cap, but now the roster looks like:

Anisimov, Avery, Boyle, Brashear, Callahan, Christensen, Drury, Dubinsky (LTIR), Gaborik, Higgins, Kotalik, Lisin, Parenteau, Prospal, Voros
Del Zotto, Gilroy, Girardi, Heikkinen, Redden, Rozsival, Staal
Johnson, Lundqvist

Which I guess sounds like a fuller roster on paper? I'm not impressed. Seriously, put Michal Rozsival on waivers, Torts. This will solve your cap woes and take a regular liability off the ice.