With a five-game west coast road trip kicking off Saturday night, the Flyers made a move indicative of how the roster may look for those five games. The Flyers have placed Andy Andreoff on waivers, with the intent of sending him to Lehigh Valley.
According to Dave Isaac of the Courier Post, Andreoff last cleared waivers back on September 25th. Since he’s played 10 games and stayed in the NHL for over 30 days since last clearing waivers, he needs to clear again.
That move is indicative of a player being on the cusp of coming back, if not being ready right now. While Scott Laughton has missed the last five games with a groin injury, he may be ready to resume action.
If this is in fact true, the Flyers get their Swiss-Army knife back, and just in time for a lengthy road-trip. Laughton hasn’t played in five games, his last game against the Minnesota Wild. He has nine points (4g, 5a) in 19 games while averaging 14:34 per night.
While having Laughton back is great, the Andreoff move wasn’t necessarily because he was coming back. Laughton wasn’t put on long-term injured reserve, so the Flyers didn’t need a roster space for him. Michael Raffl was placed on LTIR back on December 4th, given the diagnosis of a broken finger. Original timetable for a return was four weeks, and those four weeks are just about up.
LTIR requirements state that a player must be made unavailable for 24 calendar days, or 10 NHL games. The game against San Jose will be the 10th game since Raffl was placed on LTIR, so he is free to come back for the tilt against the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday.
With that being said, the Andreoff move was more about clearing the cap room to allow Michael Raffl’s $1.6 million to be added to the cap for the Flyers. With that being said, the Flyers look to be as healthy as they can entering the five-game road-trip on the west coast, which is a great sign.
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