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Sheldon Souray clears waivers, goes nowhere

Jarome Iginla, Sheldon Souray

Edmonton Oilers’ Sheldon Souray, left, fights with Calgary Flames’ Jarome Iginla during the third period of an NHL hockey game in Calgary, Alberta, Canada on Saturday, Jan. 30, 2010. Calgary won 6-1. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Larry MacDougal)

AP

This may come as a shock to many of you out there, but it appears that the 29 other teams in the NHL had no interest in picking up defenseman Sheldon Souray off of waivers.

Souray is in the midst of a five-year contract with Edmonton that runs through the 2011-12 season. The no-trade clause on the deal has expired.

“I understand the business side of things and I hope things work out for both the Oilers and for myself,” Souray told TSN on Friday when he was first placed on waivers.

After all, a guy who’s coming off a season which saw him miss time for both a concussion and a broken hand and has a cap hit of $5.4 million over the next two years can’t be considered a steal by anyone. Had this move occurred during the regular season, you could bank on Souray being sent down to the AHL and then Edmonton rolling the dice on bringing him back up through recall waivers to see if anyone would take a chance on him and have Edmonton end up paying for it. Instead, the Oilers are just stuck with a very expensive player they’re trying to help get out of town.

“Maybe it accelerates some action here. This is the time of year where (teams) do have some roster spots open, some cap space available. We would thought we would explore this opportunity to see if we could make something happen,” general manager Steve Tambellini told the club’s radio rights holder.

The only way Steve Tambellini is going to get Souray out of Edmonton is by taking on another team’s bad contract(s) in return. With Souray’s injury history, acquiring him is a huge risk. Souray will either play a full season and be excellent (the way he was in 06-07 and 08-09) or he’ll miss huge amounts of time and frustrate everyone in your organization (like he did in 07-08 and 09-10). A team willing to take a chance on a guy like that can always happen, just not at that price.