With thanks for the tipoff from Dave at The Ice Block, reports from Toronto media – Leafs Lunch radio show say that Dave Andreychuk has been placed on waivers
EDIT: Met with skepticism by Lightning fans — Sportsnet.ca and TSN.ca have both confirmed that the Lightning have made Andreychuk avalible. With injuries to Freddie Modin, Ryan Craig and Robbie DiMaio the move looks confusing.,.. But with the Lightning enar the cap and making call ups left and right while exploring other moves as well, roster space and cap space is a premium.
Edit #2: Erik Erlendsson of the Tampa Tribune has supposedly passed on the news this is just an “out of control rumor” that has been debunked by Andreychuk himself… This seems like another case of Toronto Media crap…
EDIT #3 Look out now! Eric and the Trib report Dave Andreychuk has been waived, 5 days after the initial report came out! One can look at Jay Feaster’s comments in the Tribune and see that Jay’s got the Art of Avoiding down pretty well:
“I have no comment to make at this time,” Feaster said before Thursday’s game against the Sabres. “I feel that I learned my lesson in 2003-04 when I spent time trying to tell everybody that I wasn’t going to trade Nikolai Khabibulin and it didn’t matter. I found that the media is going to write what the media wants to write anyway. It never went away no matter how many times I said it.”So Feaster’s official statement regarding the rumor of Andreychuk being shopped?
“I made up my mind [following the Khabibulin rumors] that my official position on anything involving trade rumors is that I am not going to confirm it, I’m not going to deny it and nothing should be inferred by my refusal to confirm or deny,” Feaster said. “I’m just not going to get into it.”
Feaster used Nikolai Khabibulin’s name in comparison and fans responded that this rumor was a non issue. There HAD been hype about Khabibulin being traded and instead of that happening – Jeay vowwed to pick up Nikolai’s option and keep him on the team.
Yet, fans getting behind Feaster’s comment’s simply be believing a key word or phrase or name comparison forgot the fact that Feaster is a general manager and quelching rumors are as much of his business as improving the team. He quelched this one until he finally was ready to pull the trigger….
Speaking of trigger’s, Keith passed on to me from Calgary that there is a strong buzzing out west that the Lightning are about to deal for Manny Fernandez from the Minnesota Wild… To be continued…
Edit #4It would seem that the Lightning are planning to go with assistant captains for the remainder of the season. Freddie Modin and Lecavalier are currently assistants. One more will be added – likely Taylor, but no one is saying anything. I updated the poll asking fans who they would name Captain of hte Lightning in Dave’s waiver wake.
Edit #5 (Final) Dave knows it’s over… He’s got the cup, he’s got records to his name, he’s got the admiration of most – if not all – players in the league. He’d li8ke to continue on in some capacity with teh Lightning and I’m pretty sure everyone here in Tampa Bay would be more than willing to keep him around.
