It appears as though the Vancouver Canucks will be placing Christopher Higgins on waivers, as soon as tomorrow morning.

In an interview with Dan Murphy at the first intermission, Trevor Linden broached on the Higgins situation and the market for his services. It sounded every bit as barren as one might reasonably expect, with Linden saying something to the effect of “there isn’t a market for Higgins and we’ll be taking the next steps by placing him on waivers tomorrow morning”.

Paraphrasing, but there’s very little room for interpretation here anyways.

While unfortunate, it isn’t overly surprising that the Canucks were unable to find a market for Higgins services. The 32-year old winger has but three points to his credit in 25 appearances this season and is carrying a hefty cap hit – relative to his perceived role – at $2.5-millon with one season beyond this one. While rumours persist that the Canucks were actively shopping Higgins last summer, Linden only went so far as to admit putting his name in play for much of this season.

By sending Higgins down to their AHL club in Utica, the Canucks will save $950,000, but will still be on the hook for the remaining $1.55-million against the cap. Saving a couple bucks against the cap doesn’t hurt, but realistically, the bigger gain here is the roster spot. After acquiring Emerson Etem last Friday, the Canucks had to place Jannik Hansen on IR just to bring their roster to the acceptable 23-man limit.

With the return of Brandon Sutter and Luca Sbisa – among others – starting to creep on them, Vancouver was left with little choice but to get creative in solving their logjam. Unfortunately, that spelled the end for Higgins in Vancouver.

It will be interesting to see whether Higgins clears waivers or not. We’ve seen younger, more affordable players dangled on the wire, only to pass without a hitch. It doesn’t work in Higgins favour that his offence has all but evaporated and there will be lingering concerns to the extent which he is still hobbled by an injury suffered towards the end of pre-season.

All the same, this is still a useful middle-six forward. I probably lean towards the low-end of that scale, but there is still value to be found in those players all the same for a contending team. Higgins may not be able to produce at the near second-line clip he maintained for much of his stay in Vancouver, but he’s likely a much better finisher (even at this stage in his career) than his boxcar output would indicate this season.

For any team considering whether this is a chance worth taking, it should be taken into consideration that Higgins is sporting a 3.7 on-ice sh%. That’s over four points lower than what one might reasonably expect from a forward of his calibre.

Higgins might be a declining asset, but likely much less so than most are letting themselves believe. Could represent a savvy and asset cost-free pickup for any team looking at an extended run into June.