After sending Ondrej Pavelec down to the AHL last season, the Winnipeg Jets have done it again and spent money to get rid of a veteran player whose play has been a detriment to the team: they have placed Mark Stuart on waivers for the purpose to buy him out of the last year of his contract.
Full list is: Murphy & Bouma (CAL,) Hayes (BOS), Jokinen (FLA), Stuart (WIN), Cammalleri & Smith-Pelly (NJ).
— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) June 30, 2017
This means that while Stuart will be on the Jets cap for an extra year, it will be at a reduced rate, two thirds of his contract, leaving the Jets with a cap hit of $1 732 500 for the next two years. This is still quite a bit lower that the $2 625 000 that they were paying him for next year.
This might point to the Jets making a move in free agency and they wanted to clear up some immediate cap space to do it. Whatever it means, the Jets bottom pair got better by the subtraction of Stuart. Stuart was never a great defenceman, but he did always do the best he could for the team. He was a leader with the team and by all accounts was liked in the room.
