The Vancouver Canucks have quietly turned into a landing spot for two players the Ottawa Senators lost on waivers this season.
Cameron Crotty is the latest. Vancouver claimed the defenceman from the Minnesota Wild this week after Minnesota put him back on waivers in an attempt to assign him to its AHL affiliate. Crotty had only just landed in Minnesota after Ottawa tried to send him to Belleville in late October, only for the Wild to scoop him up instead.
That meant the 27-year-old Ottawa native’s run with his hometown club was over before it really got going. His stint in Minnesota didn’t last long either, and now he’s on the move again, this time to Vancouver.
Crotty was drafted by the Arizona Coyotes in the third round in 2017. The 6-foot-3 right-shot defender played six games for the Senators last season and three more this season before Ottawa exposed him to waivers. In Ottawa, he was mostly a depth piece, the kind of player who gives a team insurance on the back end while bouncing between the NHL and AHL.
Looking back, the Senators might have preferred to keep Crotty as their seventh defenceman rather than turn to 21-year-old Carter Yakemchuk, who has been a healthy scratch in five of the past six games.
Crotty isn’t the only former Senator now in Vancouver’s system. Leevi Meriläinen, who was also lost on waivers earlier this season, is there too.
Meriläinen’s brief run in relief of injured goalies Linus Ullmark and Anton Forsberg was a major reason Ottawa stayed afloat. In 12 appearances, he went 8-3-1 with a 1.99 goals against average and a .925 save percentage. Without that stretch, the Senators probably would have missed the playoffs for an eighth straight season.
That performance convinced Ottawa he was ready for a full-time backup role last season, but the results didn’t hold. He appeared in 20 NHL games, finishing 8-10-1 with a 3.51 goals-against average and an .860 save percentage. Ottawa eventually sent him back to Belleville and brought in free agent backup James Reimer.
Neither Crotty nor Meriläinen was expected to play a major role for the Senators this season, but losing both for nothing still stings. That’s the reality of a team with depth and a waiver system designed to keep NHL-caliber players from being buried in the minors.
At least both players remain wanted in the NHL. And at 3-16-1, they’re now hoping Vancouver’s situation improves soon.
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