Love how this says holland avail . No really ? He was waived and cleared already
When will people realize that his waiving at the beginning of the season had nothing to do with his availability or current value. He was waived for money reasons, not performance reasons or because we didn't want him. Because he cleared, we got 800k off his cap hit and increased his value as a result. If he was really waiver fodder, we wouldn't have qualified him in the first place (like Percy, Carrick, Smith, etc.) and let him become a free agent.
Like Laich, Greening and Michalek, he just lost to a huge numbers games at forward. The Leafs preferred to play younger guys in the lineup over (arguably better in some cases) veterans and the vets either saw their ice time cut or were waived. The fact that Holland hasn't been waived yet and Leivo was placed on IR shows that there is probably something out there for him right now, unlike the latter three who were waived pretty much immediately.
I wouldn't be surprised that between our game on Saturday against Washington and our trip out West in the middle of next week he's moved out for more than people expected him to get and we have Leivo off of the IR. There is not a lot of basis for this claim more than a gut feeling, but I know Holland has more value than people are making it out to be.
As for the defenseman thing, I doubt we are considering most of the options presented to us on here unless the other team is paying us to take them on.