The Tampa Bay Lightning can clear salary cap space after Cam Atkinson and Logan Brown cleared NHL waivers. More teams added players to the waiver wire on Wednesday as well.
With these moves, the team can bury Atkinson's $900,000 cap hit. Brown, who signed a two-way NHL contract, carries a $775,000 cap hit in the NHL.
Tampa Bay's waiver news comes as the team's acquiring Yanni Gourde and Oliver Bjorkstrand from the Seattle Kraken.
In addition to Atkinson and Brown being sent down to the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch, four more Eastern Conference teams put in their own waiver transactions.
Those placed on the wire on Saturday include Christian Fischer of the Detroit Red Wings, Jakub Vrana of the Washington Capitals and Jordan Oesterle of the Boston Bruins.
The Florida Panthers placed Jesse Puljujarvi on waivers, but that was a part of signing the right winger to a two-way, pro-rated contract at $775,000.
Detroit is in the process of clearing the most cap space of all the teams active in the waiver wire on Wednesday as Fischer earns $1.125 million. Boston and Washington waived players who earn the league minimum of $775,000.
The Red Wings and the Bruins are currently in the trenches of the Eastern Conference wild-card battle. Therefore, they could be teams that look to add before Friday’s NHL trade deadline to advance themselves in the playoff race.
According to PuckPedia, after burying Fischer’s contract, the Wings should have over $13 million in salary cap space, leaving plenty of room for potential additions to the team. As for the Bruins, waiving Oesterle will give the team about $2.4 million of cap space.
While the Capitals carry $3.65 million of cap space, removing Vrana’s cap load will take them well over the $4 million mark.
