In what appears to be a move to help deal with the financial stress that the New Jersey Devils are currently suffering from after the Ilya Kovalchuk deal, Brian Rolston has been placed on waivers. Rolston has one of the more sizable contracts on the team with an annual cap hit of $5.063 million and goes through the 2012 season, which makes it one of the least desirable deals to have remain on the books at the moment. Saying that, the full cap hit may not be desirable to any other team, but it may be easier to stomach if he was claimed on re-entry waivers, just so that the Devils would still pay half of the hit.
Rolston's season has been hampered by injury, missing out on 14 games due to a sports hernia, but even then, he has struggled in the 15 games he has played in, scoring only 2 goals and 2 assists in that stretch. This could definitely be considered as another reason why he is becoming the odd-man out, also making the 37-year old veteran a tougher sell on the waiver wire. I would imagine that there is still belief in his talent, but with the way the Devils have been struggling, something really needs to be done.
This really is only news for the selection sheet, but Rolston is a pretty decent player. If he is to get claimed in the next 24 hours or placed and claimed on/off re-entry waivers, I think it would be very interesting to note where he ends up. At a shade over $2.5 million (annually), Rolston could be a decent fit for a number of teams, possibly enough so to give him a boost to his poor start in the 2011 season. The second waiver draft is still quite a ways away and he may not show up on the top 20 list, thanks to his bad start.Link to the Injury/News Page
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