Ideal Homes for the Best Players on the NHL Waiver Wire Ahead of 2014-15 Season

Another day, another slew of fringe NHL players available on the waiver wire. It’s an interesting time for waivers, because there’s still a week to go before the start of the season, and the majority of teams aren’t down to their final cuts just yet. But as St. Louis Blues beat reporter Andy Strickland notes, that actually makes this time of year ideal for teams to try and slide guys through waivers:

Strickland’s tweet was on the heels of the Blues’ decision to demote Chris Butler, who played all 82 games for Calgary last year and ranked high in our evaluation of Monday’s waiver wire. It’s an interesting comment, though, because once again the Blues are trying to sneak some reasonably high-profile guys down to the minors.

Paul Vernon/Associated Press

Peter Mueller is the most famous of these. The sixth overall pick in the 2006 draft, Mueller has posted 160 points in just under 300 career NHL games. He played in Switzerland in 2013-14 after a difficult year in Florida and led his team in scoring with 46 points in 49 games. He isn’t overly fast, but he’s a cerebral player who has a nice offensive track record.   

Generally listed as a centre, he’s spent the vast majority of his NHL career as a winger, and he’d be a decent reclamation project for a team in need of some offensive punch on the wing.

Ideal fit: Pittsburgh is a team that comes to mind. It's had decent luck sticking random guys in its top six and it needs guys who are both cheap and decent in its bottom six. The Pens have had injury trouble too—notably Beau Bennett’s knee problem—and might be able to reclaim Mueller.

Paul Vernon/Associated Press

Also dropped by the Blues on Wednesday was Nate Prosser. A No. 6/7 defender with Minnesota the last few years, Prosser had remarkably impressive underlying totals for a guy getting a pretty steady diet of defensive zone starts. He isn’t overly physical, but he’s a smart defender, a right-hand shot and a guy who can move the puck reasonably well.

Ideal fit: There are lots of teams that could use a decent spare defenceman, but the most obvious of these is probably Toronto. The Maple Leafs admirably improved their forward depth in the offseason, but injuries have decimated a somewhat shallow back end.

Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press

In Dallas, Travis Morin got the bad news that he was bound for the farm on Wednesday. The 30-year-old pivot is easy to dismiss as a career minor leaguer, but he might be the best minor league guy in the world. Morin won the MVP awards at the AHL level in both the regular season and the playoffs, leading Texas to an AHL championship last spring. In a league where centres are dropping like flies, he might deserve a look he would not otherwise get.

Ideal fit: There are a ton of teams out there that could use a pivot, but the most obvious one is Carolina, which has lost Jordan Staal for the next few months thanks to a training camp injury. Morin’s a dirt-cheap NHL option ($550,000 cap hit), there’s a spot for an offensively gifted pivot open and if it doesn’t work out it’s no great loss for the ‘Canes.

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There is one other player on the waiver wire worth mentioning. Carl Klingberg was a second-round pick of the Atlanta Thrashers back in 2009, when he was projected as a high-end depth player, a crash-and-bang winger who could score a little and play a responsible defensive game. The 6’3”, 205-pound forward can play on either side of the ice and at just 23 years of age still has some upside as an NHL role player.

Ideal fit: The Edmonton Oilers are auditioning a bunch of middling players—Tyler Pitlick, Jesse Joensuu, Steve Pinizzotto—for work on a defensive zone line. Klingberg fits into the same mold as that trio and might be worth taking a flier on.

Jonathan Willis covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter for more of his work. Statistics via NHL.com and BehindtheNet.ca; salary information courtesy of CapGeek.com and waiver information via TVA's Renaud Lavoie.