Uncle Scrooge
Hockey Bettor
My guess as to why: They need to get a defenseman to expose for the expansion draft and need the contact space to add him and have a few other bodies they plan to add in trade/FA. Add in a less than ideal rehab for Wiz and it makes sense. He played 47 seconds so it's not like he was a cog of the team.
To go further, we have to expose someone for the 40/70 requirement. Hanifin, Slavin, Pesce are exempt. Hainsey doesn't have a contract for 17-18, so nope. That's 4 down already. That leaves Wiz, Murphy, Faulk. Wiz doesn't have a contract for 17-18. Murphy needs 35 games next season to meet the 70 game over two seasons requirement. If we kept Wiz, we'd be swapping him out every other game just to get Murphy his requirement because we sure as hell aren't exposing Faulk. At that point, what's the point in keeping Wiz if he's not back to where he started? So, we decided to cut him and go after someone else who can take his place and meet the requirement himself.
I think I have that right. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Good point.
Probably a lot of 'weird' stuff will keep on happening around the league because of the expansion draft.
After all, for us it's still far away, but for the GM's they already have to make every single move with the expansion draft in mind.
And even if by the expansion draft they realize this buyout was unnecessary, it's still better to do it than regret later.