Kings Claim Jones From Philly

The Kings made a big splash from the waiver wire on Thursday, claiming defenseman Randy Jones off of the re-entry waiver wire from the Flyers. Jones was called up from the minors on Wednesday, but had to pass through waivers in order to re-join the line-up and the Flyers were taking quite the gamble to do so, especially since the Flyers will now be on the hook for half of Jones' salary and cap hit.

It seems that everyone was either aware of Jones' sub-par outing in 2009 or knew that he was destined for the minors with the Flyers, until such time an injury would arise, because no one picked him in the Sheet pool. He resides in Box 30, the last defenseman pool of the Eastern Conference and was passed over for guys like Luke Schenn in Toronto or Ville Koistinen in Florida. I wonder if the move to Los Angeles will make him more attractive to anyone in either pool.

The Kings and Flyers were in two different cap situations before this move came down. The Kings had a lot of room to move and were able to pick up Jones' salary, as a whole, let alone half; while the Flyers were having all sorts of cap troubles, but the injury to Simon Gagne would have allowed the Flyers to have Jones on their active roster for the time being. Well, now the Flyers will have half of Jones' cap hit for the rest of the year, regardless of where he is playing with the Kings organization. That's a pretty big ouch.