Today is an important day on the NHL calendar. By 4:00 p.m. this afternoon, all 32 teams must be under the $82.5-million salary cap and have their roster finalized as they start to see some real action and the regular season beginning this week.
That is why essentially every team placed handfuls of players on waivers yesterday afternoon, to try and crowd the wire and get some players through that unfortunately will not start their seasons with the first team, but were the last to be cut. For the Minnesota Wild, that meant placing forwards Nic Petan and Mason Shaw on waivers, as both were key candidates to make the team but the numbers just didn’t pan out.