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This move shouldn't really be a surprise considering the kind of player he is, but I
was surprised to see that Max McCormick was placed on waivers today:
The fact that he was ever given a one-way contract for this season was quite ridiculous considering the fact that he had never played more than 30 NHL games in a season (and only has played 14 so far this year). McCormick has just one goal in those 14 games, and shockingly he only has 4 penalty minutes as well. He has consistently been a pest and a fighter in the AHL with 461 PIMs in 234 games, but in the NHL, he only has 78 PIMs in 71 games. He's a player that doesn't bring very much to the table, and there are much better options out there on the fourth line.
I'm assuming that he will clear waivers, and his cap hit of $650k will no longer count towards the Senators salary cap. As Colin Cudmore points out, these two players add to quite a bit of money in the AHL (based on real salary, not cap hit):
It'd be nice to see someone claim McCormick a) because then he will get an opportunity somewhere else, and b) because then Ottawa won't be tempted to call him up over someone more skilled such as Rudolfs Balcers, Filip Chlapik, or Logan Brown. McCormick is 26 years old, and he hasn't done anything very impressive at the NHL level. He is a solid AHL player as he racked up 27 points in 49 games last year, and that is valuable to have at that level. But he simply isn't skilled enough to be in the NHL.
As for where the Senators roster stands right now, they have 12 healthy forwards, with Matt Duchene closing in on a return to make it 13. So it doesn't seem like somebody will need to be called up to replace McCormick. Stefan Elliott and Erik Burgdoerfer were also sent down to Belleville (giving them six healthy defensemen), as Mark Borowiecki will be playing soon as well:
I'm glad to see Pierre Dorion willing to at least partially pull the plug on the McCormick experiment, because he wasn't good enough and Guy Boucher was playing him in less than half the games and he was averaging 7:30 of ice-time per game. That still doesn't excuse the contract Dorion gave to him, because there really was no need to give him a one-way deal for 2018-19. That's been a common occurrence for Dorion recently where he makes a decent move, but it only looks decent because he is making up for his past mistakes.
I just hope that they have a clear vision on exactly what McCormick can bring at the NHL level, which is not very much.
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