According to an NHL source, the Wild has placed Bloomington-born, Plymouth resident Mark Parrish on waivers.

If he clears the 24-hour waivers, it is likely he will be bought out of the remaining three years of his contract and will become a free agent.

Parrish spent much of his two seasons with his hometown Wild in Jacques Lemaire’s doghouse.

OK, I’m back. That was from my Blackberry.

As I reported June 11, it was hard to see where Parrish fit in on this team. In that story, I mentioned that sources were telling me Doug Risebrough was offering him in a trade everywhere. I also mentioned buying out Parrish as a possibility. But I suggested the Wild would be smarter to put him on waivers in camp and then call him up on re-entry waivers so they save half the cap.

But the Wild made this decision now, I believe, because there was (CORREX) July 29 buyout deadline (third day after clubs final’s arbitration settlement or hearing, i.e. Bouchard Saturday just after midnight) and because Risebrough wanted to give Parrish an opportunity now to latch onto another team and get his life situated.

There are about six or seven teams actually over the cap right now. Teams could become further handicapped by the season, so it would be harder to lose Parrish in training camp, too. So this is at least a guarantee.

As I mentioned in my depth chart, the Wild had to feel it was too close to the cap for comfort.

If Parrish is claimed, that team will incur his salary and cap hit. If he clears and the Wild indeed buys him out like I know it plans, it’ll have to pay 2/3 of his contract or $5,566,667.

Because of a cap formula that allows you to spread cap pain through double the contract, the Wild will be charged with a cap hit for six years but get a break that way. So it’ll be charged $727,778 for Years 1-2, $927,778 for Years 4-6.

For whatever reason, it just didn’t work out in Minnesota for Parrish. He was injured a lot, and Jacques Lemaire just never took to him. He scored 35 goals in Minny.

Update: If he’s bought out, the Wild’s cap hit goes down to $52,649,277. If he’s claimed, take another $727,778 off that.

This also opens the door for Colton Gillies perhaps to make the squad?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 12:11 pm and is filed under Breaking news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.