Report: Miller Waived to Make Room for Kronwall

Per Gregg Krupa of the Detroit News, the Red Wings will be placing Drew Miller on waivers at noon today to make room for the return of Niklas Kronwall from injured reserve.

drew miller on waivers at noon, ken holland confirms.#RedWings

— gregg krupa (@greggkrupa) January 22, 2017

My understanding of waivers was that the player had to have cleared before his roster spot opened up, so I’m a little confused here, but I could just be misunderstanding.

Either way, it’s not the move I expected or preferred, but it’s acceptable.  I expected Ryan Sproul to get waived, as he’s the odd-defenseman-out.  I would have liked Steve Ott to get waived, but he can’t be while he’s on injured reserve.  It’ll be interesting to see if someone takes a flier on him or if he ends up in GR.

Per Winging it in Motown, a player can still be on the roster but not count towards the limit if they’re on waivers. This seems weird to me because there are cases where a player has played while on waivers.  Maybe it’s a case-by-case basis or something.