The Vancouver Canucks continued their series of demotions this afternoon, placing Alex Friesen and Blair Jones on waivers, presumably in an attempt to send them down to the AHL’s Utica Comets.
Neither of these moves is overly surprising. While both players were hoping to make the team, and got their fair share of preseason minutes, the odds of them cracking the Canucks lineup was very slim.
Friesen scored one of the few regulation goals for the Canucks this preseason last night, a seeing-eye wrister from the left wing. He also put up the fourth-highest possession percentage of forwards in the game. A single pre-season game won’t force him up the depth chart, though; he’s projected to be a contributing role player on the Comets this season. He put up thirty points in sixty games with Utica in 2014/15, along with four goals and six assists in the playoffs.
The 29-year old Jones continues to struggle to find a permanent NHL home; he’s played in chunks of eight seasons but hasn’t amassed more than 22 games played with a single team. He spent the bulk of last year with the Lehigh valley Phantoms, scoring nine goals and adding twelve assists in 33 games.
Both are expected to clear waivers, barring a team having a particular interest in a part of their skilset.
The two weren’t the only players to hit the waiver wire today. Here’s what the rest of the league did:
ARIZONA: Brendan Shinnimin, Craig Cunningham
ANAHEIM: Joe Piskula, Shane O’Brien, Harry Zolnierczyk, Brian McGrattan
BUFFALO: Jerry D’Amigo
CALGARY: Derek Grant, Turner Elson
CHICAGO: Ernest Schilling, Brandon Mashinter
COLORADO: Ben Street
COLUMBUS: Brett Gallant
EDMONTON: Tyler Pitlick, Andrew Miller, Brad Hunt, Ryan Hamilton
MINNESOTA: Ruslan Fedotenko, Jared Knight, Brett Sutter, Zac Dalpe
NEW JERSEY: Paul Thompson, Michael Sislo, James O’Brien, Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond, Brandon Burlon
NEW YORK RANGERS: Chris Summers, Brian Gibbons, Ryan Bourque, Luke Adam
OTTAWA: Cole Schneider, Patrick Mullen, Dave Dziurzynski
SAN JOSE: Mark Cundari, John McCarthy, Michael Haley, Karl Stollery, Bryan Lerg, Aaron Dell
TAMPA BAY: Matt Taormina, Tye McGinn, Jeff Tambellini, Philippe Paradis, Michael Blunden
