The New York Rangers placed backup goaltender Steve Valiquette on waivers in a surprising move on Wednesday, replacing their former backup with Chad Johnson from the Hartford Wolf Pack.
According to Andrew Gross of Ranger Rants, Valiquette has cleared waivers at noon and has been assigned to Hartford in order to continue with the original plan set out for Valiquette.
"We’d like to send [Valiquette] down on conditioning," coach John Tortorella said on Wednesday. "We want to get him down there playing and get his game back. It’s a tough situation for Valley. He hasn’t played a whole bunch. Sometimes your skills may diminish. It’s just been a little bit of a struggle for him. He works his butt off on the ice, but he hasn’t played much and I think that’s hurt him. He gets an opportunity to play some minutes and get his game back."
Through five starts for New York this season, Valiquette has struggled going 2-3-0 with a 3.74 GAA.
His last game—where he was hung out to dry in an 8-3 loss to the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins—was the nail in the coffin for Valiquette. In that game, Valiquette made just 25 saves on 33 ...
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Article written by Rob Cristino
Steve Valiquette Clears Waivers, Assigned to Hartford Wolf Pack
December 3rd, 2009 by Rob Cristino Leave a reply »
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