The odds of a player being claimed on waivers is low, but the Rangers beat them yesterday. Defenseman William Trudeau was claimed by the Nashville Predators after being placed on waivers Friday. The 23-year-old was acquired in the draft day trade that sent Brett Berard to the Montreal Canadiens and is yet to make his NHL debut.

Losing Trudeau probably doesn’t impact the team very much, the Rangers have a lot of left-handed defensemen in the organization, and he would have ranked behind Drew Fortescue and Matthew Robertson as depth players. Assuming Alberts Smits makes the line-up. There’s also Urho Vaakanainen who was likely ahead of him.

RISK OF LOSING GARAND

Putting Dylan Garand on waivers is another thing altogether. The Rangers continue to have doubts about Garand as a legitimate NHLer at this stage of his career, despite success in a three-game cameo at the end of last season. Losing him on waivers seems like a legitimate possibility given the number of teams searching for goaltenders year to year.

It’s clear the Rangers continue to doubt his readiness for the NHL. They experimented with Spencer Martin last season, and brought in Joonas Korpisalo and made him their anointed back-up despite calling it a competition. In reality there wasn’t going to be a competition unless the Finn fell on his face.

Garand tried though. He put up strong performances when he finally got his chance at the end of last season. A debut that could have come a lot earlier and allowed the Rangers a better chance to evaluate him. That might end up being the biggest regret if he does indeed go on to have an NHL career somewhere else.

Instead they’ll trust that Shesterkin can remain healthy, and that Korpisalo can be at least a replacement level goaltender while eating up $3M of cap space. It feels like another Chris Drury mistake, and undoes some of the positive work he did this off-season.

RADDYSH FATE SEALED IN EARLY SEPTEMBER

Seeing Taylor Raddysh on waivers is far less surprising. The 28-year-old forward had a couple of strong games last year, including a hat-trick in a 6-5 OT loss to the Sharks early in the season. More often though he was invisible, scoring just 4 goals in 56 games after posting 5 in his first 12. By the end of the season, he had lost his spot to Jaroslav Chmelar and was a healthy scratch. The claiming of Tye Kartye off of waivers back in February along with the signing of Eeli Tolvanen in September all but sealed his fate.

In camp he saw time on both the third and fourth lines, but Mike Sullivan preferred the Matt Rempe’s heavier game, and Kartye’s higher energy and compete levels than the relatively vanilla performances by Raddysh.

Raddysh could still potentially contribute in the NHL, but if he goes unclaimed he’ll join Hartford as one of seven veterans. That’ll mean that Pack Head Coach Jay Leach will need to sit someone to meet the league threshold of a six veteran limit per game.