IN EXILE: Sean Avery remains with the AHL Whale even though at least one NHL club has expressed interest in claiming him on re-entry waivers. (Getty Images)
Sean Avery will remain a member of the AHL Whale for the time being despite the fact the Rangers have been asked by a NHL club to place the exiled winger on re-entry waivers, The Post has learned.
Sources have told The Post general manager Glen Sather rejected that request, instead offering to trade Avery in a minor-league deal under which the Rangers would take back additional dollars but the responsibility for placing Avery on re-entry would then pass to the acquiring club that would then bear the burden of carrying dead salary-cap space upon a claim.
The Post has learned there is at least one other club also prepared to claim Avery, who cleared waivers on Dec. 30 and was thereafter assigned to Connecticut for the second time this season, if the Rangers place him on re-entry.
When Sather was asked yesterday by The Post if the Rangers would agree to put Avery through the re-entry process, the GM replied via email: “Not now.”
Avery’s full cap hit for the remainder of the season is just a tick over $890,000 as of tomorrow. Therefore, the Rangers would be hit with approximately $445,000 of dead cap space upon a re-entry claim.
The NHL has calculated that scenario would theoretically cost the Rangers $2 million in available space at the Feb. 27 trade deadline: $1 million of accrued space for which the club would be charged plus $1 million it therefore would not save.
Sather’s willingness to acquire AHL players on one-way contracts who would then be assigned to the Whale creates the possibility of a cash-poor club with ample salary-cap space making such an exchange with the Rangers, knowing that Avery would be claimed on re-entry.