The Chicago Blackhawks have placed defenseman Viktor Svedberg and four other players on waivers Monday, per ESPN’s Pierre LeBrun. Defenseman Ernest Schilling and forwards Pierre-Cedric Labrie, Sam Carrick and Spencer Abbott were also waived to help clear space on the active roster.
The other 29 NHL teams will have 24 hours to decide whether to claim any of the players. If there are no claims placed, then all five players will be assigned to AHL Rockford to open the season.
The Hawks have been active in trimming down their roster Monday. Earlier in the day, the team announced that nine players were cut, including defensemen Ville Pokka and Erik Gustafsson. All of those players were waiver-exempt, so they didn’t need to be placed on waivers to be sent down.
Svedberg, Schilling, Labrie, Carrick and Abbott are no longer waiver-exempt, so they need to pass through waivers in order to be assigned to the AHL. Mark McNeill, Dennis Rasmussen, Brandon Mashinter and Jordin Tootoo are other players competing for roster spots who aren’t waiver-exempt.
The most notable name hitting waivers for Chicago is Svedberg, a 25-year-old who played in 27 NHL games last season. He’s absolutely massive (6’8, 238 pounds) and could intrigue a team that thinks it can coax more out of him than the Hawks have. He put up underwhelming numbers in his stint with the Hawks and isn’t a great puck-mover, though, so it’s hard to say he would be a significant loss.
With guys like Pokka and Gustafsson waiting in the wings, the Hawks have decided that Svedberg is expendable.