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According to Chris Johnston of Sportsnet, Stephane Robidas has been informed he hasn’t “made the team” for opening night. Contrary to some earlier reports, he has not been placed on waivers.

Robidas was not at practice this morning, spurring on the speculation of a waiver move. It turns out Robidas has a knee injury and is expected to go on IR.

Obviously, there remains an option to later send Robidas down to be a mentor to the young D on the Marlies. That’s less than ideal given Kyle Dubas will want ample space for young developing players and already has a spot earmarked for 27-year-old Andrew Campbell, but it might be the only real option. Due to the 35+ rule (applies to players signed to their current contract after the age of 35), the Maple Leafs would only save $100,000 on the cap instead of the usual $950,000.

More than just this season – when the cap flexibility situation shouldn’t be a major issue – Robidas’ body is giving out on him, it looks like he can no longer get by in even a bottom-pair role at the NHL level, and he’s got another year (beyond this one) at $3M – $2.9M in the minors – on the cap. A buyout, due to the 35+ rule, would offer no cap relief.

The Leafs gave Robidas the benefit of the doubt all of last year due to his veteran status, the contract Dave Nonis gave him, and the fact that he missed training time in the offseason and couldn’t take part in preseason besides the very last game. This year, he participated fully in camp, and despite sounding optimistic about having a painful screw removed and regaining strength in his broken leg from over a year ago, was still lagging behind the pace. He could only start skating in August due to the shoulder surgery that curtailed his 2014-15 season.

Robidas could only manage something close to competent possession results last season when he was paired with one of the Leafs‘ mobile puck-moving defencemen in Jake Gardiner or Morgan Rielly. He was a 48% CF with Gardiner and a 47.7% with Rielly, and was in the low 40s without them. Even then, it was a drag on Gardiner and Rielly’s numbers: Gardiner was a 50% CF without Robidas and Rielly was a 48.3, suggesting they were, to some degree, buoying an anchor.

For now, it looks like he’s going to hang around in the press box, and injured reserve gives the Leafs an easy option to solve the problem temporarily.

There could be some tinkering done with some of the names on the waiver wire, but this is what we’re generally looking at in terms of lines and the makeup of the 23-man roster to start the season.

Based on those lines, Panik and Grabner would appear to be the spares, but that’s merely speculation.

Unfortunately, Robidas and Polak haven’t had the best of preseasons and are the only two right-handed shots Babcock has available to him. Alas, if the above tweet is indeed the top six D on Wednesday (not for sure), Babcock is back to his Detroit situation with six lefties paired off.

Stay tuned.

Monday’s Waiver Wire

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