Monday, October 5, 2015

Canucks - why it makes sense to put Frank Corrado through waivers today

The Canucks announced today that Frankie Corrado hasn't made the team and is being sent down to the AHL. To get there, he'll have to go through waivers.

That, by itself, is unfortunate news. Corrado is still just 22, and played well in Utica last year. Although he hasn't shown value in his 28 NHL games to date, he still has a good chance to develop into a real NHLer.

Trevor Linden then went on record today to say that the Canucks could've held Corrado up with the big club if they had put Chris Higgins on LTIR.

Here's the thing, though: Corrado was eventually going to have to be sent down. He doesn't have a spot with the big club, and keeping him around as a regular scratch would hurt his development. The best thing for him now, it seems, is to play top-pair minutes in the AHL and keep improving.

Getting him to the AHL means that he has to go through waivers at some point, and today is probably the best day to do that. 29 other NHL teams are making tough decisions about roster cuts, and claiming Corrado only makes sense for them if they're prepared to give him an NHL job. As of today, those teams have all spent a month picking their guys at training camp and teaching them their systems. Corrado's not such a world beater that they'll necessarily want to upset their apple-carts to get him.

For that reason, today's the best day to send him down. Three weeks from now, when Higgins might be back, Corrado would be more likely to be claimed by a team that has either lost guys to injury or sent their rookies back to junior/the farm. If you can get Corrado through today, he can play a full season in the AHL, or if he plays half the season and proves he's really ready to move up, you call him up then. There's no point in waiting until a later date.

All this said, of course, there are still the valid points that the team shouldn't have kept Corrado up for so many games at the beginning of his career and burned his waiver-proof contract years, or that maybe Corrado wouldn't be any worse than, say, Luca Sbisa on your bottom pair. Those decisions already having been made, though, sending him down is the right thing to do.

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