McLaren on waivers

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TSN reports today that the San Jose Sharks have waived veteran defenseman Kyle McLaren.

Just hitting the wires, Kyle McLaren has been waived the by the Sharks. it was clear that his time in San Jose was over (and I said as much during the off-season), but it’s a little sad that the Sharks couldn’t find anyone to pick him up in a trade.

maybe he’ll catch on somewhere via waivers, but there hasn’t been a lot of that this season. You’re seeing the side effect of teams adjusting to the new CBA and salary cap era; early on a lot of teams signed contracts that now don’t fit their needs well, they went too old for too long. Now that the CBA’s been around a couple of years, they understand the side effects better, so contracts like this are being jettisoned.

He’s far from alone:


McLaren joins a list of players on the waiver wire today that includes Boyd Devereaux (TOR), Staffan Kronwall (TOR), Matt Pettinger (VAN), Jason Krog (VAN), Peter Schaefer (BOS), and Aaron Downey (DET). Left wing Joakim Lindstrom (CHI) was claimed off waivers by the Anaheim Ducks. On Sunday, the Montreal Canadiens placed goaltender Marc Denis and defenseman Alex Henry on waivers.

not to mention Khabibulin in Chicago, too.

This is part of the learning and adjustment of the new CBA by teams — and a side effect is that the older player, maybe still valuable, is going to find it harder to sustain their career unless they bring something really special to the game. You see that something special in Rob Blake and Jeremy Roenick, but with a player like McLaren, it comes down to whether you keep him, or you bring up a kid (for less money, of course); all things being equal, in the old days teams tended to lean on veteran experience; today, they’re leaning on youthful enthusiasm (and smaller salaries).

it’s the squeeze of the journeyman. Expected, and this year it’s kicked into high gear. If you’re not elite, it probably means your career is a year or two shorter than it might have been in the old CBA. If you’re a kid, it may mean making the NHL a year earlier.

None of which is “good” or “bad” (well, unless you ARE that player), it’s just how a business adjusts to the rules it operates under. And honestly, I’m surprised it took this long for this adjustment to kick in.

McLaren been a good shark. sorry to see him go, if he’s healthy, he can still play, but so can a bunch of other guys. Whether he’ll find a place to play, only time will tell.

I will note my first memory of McLaren, back when he was a Bruin. Wore his hair long, was a brash young kid. Came to San Jose for a (I think) pre-season game, and ran afoul of Andrei “the dancing bear” Nazarov, back when Nazty was in his “God, you can’t do that!” phase.

he and McLaren tussled and dropped the gloves, and then to the amazement of all (most especially McLaren), Nazarov grabbed him by the hair, pulled his head back with it, and then whaled away with the other. McLaren later cut his hair, the Sharks sat Nazzy down for one of those “this isn’t russia, here we don’t do that” talks, and the fans just buzzed with “did he do what we think he did?” noise.

Nazzy had this “fight to win” mentality that got the best of him at times. Fighting in the NHL is ritualized, and it took him a while to figure that out. And McLaren was one of his early victims…

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