Colin Fraser placed on waivers

Colin Fraser has been placed on waivers, per Elliotte Friedman of the CBC.

I’m waiting to get a clarification on this move, though in a broader sense, this does appear to be tied to the team attempting to become more financially flexible in advance of the March 5 trading deadline. No trades are allowed until 11:59 p.m. ET on Sunday, Feb. 23. The Olympic gold medal game will be played at 7:00 a.m. ET that same day.

The salary cap loophole that could be tied to this move was explained by James Mirtle in the Globe and Mail in January:

If you want to put a veteran player on waivers, however, in order to play them in the minors during the break, that’s fair game. That’s a pretty cold move if it’s a player that’s been on your roster all season and planning for some time off, but it would save some cap space.

Theoretically, the Kings could assign Fraser to Manchester during the break as either a “paper” transaction or as an actual assignment (more likely the former than the latter), and the team’s cap space, per Cap Geek, would increase from 3.03 million to 3.86 million. This obviously runs the risk of another NHL team claiming Fraser off waivers, which is certainly a possibility.

A similar way of looking at the move has been shared by NBC Sports Pro Hockey Talk.

Fraser has 28 goals and 58 points in 358 career games and has two assists in 33 games this season. The 29-year-old won a Stanley Cup with Chicago in 2010 and Los Angeles in 2012.