Ducks place veteran Adam Henrique on waivers

There have been some notable veterans placed on waivers in recent days, and Saturday has yielded another of those moves. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports that the Ducks have placed center Adam Henrique on waivers.

It has been a tough year for the 31-year-old, to put it lightly.  Henrique has just three goals and an assist in 16 games this season despite logging more than 16 minutes per game and nearly two per night with the man advantage.  For someone who is expected to be a top-six forward, that type of production hasn’t been good enough, which has resulted in this move.  The drop-off offensively comes as somewhat of a surprise considering that Henrique actually led Anaheim in scoring last season with 26 goals and 17 assists in 71 games; had it not been for the pandemic, he would have had a realistic chance at reaching the 30-goal mark for only the second time in his career.

Henrique still has three years left on his contract after this season with a $5.825M AAV, and with many teams being capped out (only five teams can afford to claim him), it’s quite unlikely that he’ll be claimed on Sunday.  Instead, the placement will give the Ducks a bit more roster flexibility and allow them to shuffle him to the taxi squad on non-game days, allowing them to temporarily clear $1.075M off their salary cap.  It could also serve as somewhat of a wakeup call to Henrique and the rest of the Ducks who are off to a bit of a sluggish start to their season having won only six of 17 games so far, but that’s still enough to be just two points out of a playoff spot in the West Division.