Arthur Staple: Redden “Certain” to be Waived

As per Arthur Staple of Newsday, the discussions about waiving very expensive and underachieving defenseman Wade Redden have begun internally amongst the New York Rangers brass:

There is more room on defense, where Wade Redden is almost certain to be waived and sent to Hartford when training camp ends. “He’s been discussed,” Sather said.

Clearly, we all know what the benefits of waiving Wade Redden would be. It would open a spot on the roster for a young kid, and it would clear $6.5 million in cap space for the Rangers to play with. Considering Glen Sather’s recent non-statements about Ilya Kovalchuk, fearing tampering accusations, it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that this is truly being considered as a viable option for the Rangers.

Fans have talked about this ad nauseum. For a long, long time, I believed this to be just us fans hoping and dreaming that he would get waived. As a matter of fact, I have penned several posts explaining why he won’t get waived, bought out, or traded, and that we were stuck with him for the foreseeable future. Then, this article by Staple comes out in Newsday, which is owned by Cablevision, owned by the same people that own the Rangers. The Dolan’s historically hate the media (kind of ironic, yes), but the fact that this article was published in a Dolan-owned entity speaks volumes.

The Rangers decision to wait until after training camp does serve a purpose. It forces kids to beat out the veteran for his spot on the roster, instead of just handing them the spot. Also, if no kid plays his way on the team, then the Rangers at least have a body to play on the blue line until someone proves themselves in Hartford. This also gives a 12 year veteran one more camp to try and find his game. Despite many fans feelings towards him, Redden is a class act and a nice guy. If just for that, he deserves a chance at camp to try to reclaim him spot, even if he, and we, knows it is for naught.

I still do not believe the Rangers have the cojones to waive Wade Redden. And I will continue to believe that until the day comes that he is actually waived. Maybe it is just a defense mechanism, in that if I believe he will be waived, and he isn’t, I’ll just get angry. But, for what it is worth, Rangers brass is discussing waiving Redden. Now, what to do with all that cap space?