Sens put Oduya and Burrows on waivers; sign Jim O’Brien
Veterans out, veterans in.
The Ottawa Senators announced today that forward Alexandre Burrows and defenceman Johnny Oduya have been placed on waivers, while forward Jim O’Brien has been signed to a standard player contract.
Burrows, 36, has eight points in 51 games with Ottawa this season, and is still serving his 10-game suspension. Acquired just twelve months ago for top prospect Jonathan Dahlen — who’s putting up his second straight point-per-game season in Sweden’s Allsvenskan — Burrows was re-signed to a two-year, $5 million dollar deal and has one year remaining at $2.5M. With a limited no-trade clause under his belt, his contract makes it hard for Dorion and co. to trade. There does appear to be minimal interest for a player with his playoff experience (for some reason).
Also 36, Oduya was signed to a bonus laden contract in the offseason with $1M base salary and five $250K bonuses if he met the following criteria: top 5 in TOI for defensemen, top 3 in TOI for defensemen, 41 games played, 65 games played, and qualifies for the playoffs. Already having earned one bonus, most observers thought that Oduya would be able to fetch a late-round draft pick given deadline history, but his four remaining bonuses and the other options available on the blueline may be throwing teams off. If he clears waivers, teams would be able to call Oduya up as part of a recall so don’t expect Ottawa to be left with him just yet. It is, however, a scathing inditement of the Senators talent evaluators and coaching staff that a player who could spend 411 minutes paired with Erik Karlsson on the team’s top pair can’t fetch anything of value.
Meanwhile, the team announced that they’ve signed 2007 first-round pick Jim O’Brien to a two-year, two-way contract. The deal covers the remaining of the 2017-18 season, allowing him to be called up to play NHL games, and goes until the end of 2018-19. O’Brien, 29, leads Belleville in points with 28 (13G, 15A) and has appeared in 55 of the team’s 57 games, primarily playing as the team’s top-line centre. O’Brien was on a PTO at the start of the year, and then played on an AHL-only contract until this morning.
