Rangers Claim Hamrlik from Caps
Posted on March 06, 2013A day after Washington placed Roman Hamrlik on waivers, the
New York Rangers claimed the 38-year-old veteran blueliner from the Capitals on
Wednesday.
Hamrlik, the leader among all active NHL players in career
games played (1,383), had been a healthy scratch for 16 of Washington’s last 17
games and for 17 of 21 this season. He started the season as a regular, but was
scratched after playing in the first three games of the season. Hamrlik got
into just one more game, on Feb. 7 against the Penguins in Pittsburgh.
The left-handed Hamrlik fell down Washington’s depth chart
at the start of this season when John Erskine emerged to take more left side
minutes and Tom Poti returned to the lineup after a two-year absence related to
injury. Hamrlik was beneath those two plus Karl Alzner and Jeff Schultz on
Washington’s left side. The Caps also have lefty Jack Hillen, who is still
recovering from an upper-body injury sustained in the team’s season opener in
Tampa on Jan. 19.
Signed to a two-year contract worth a total of $7 million on
July 1, 2011, Hamrlik got into 68 regular season games and all 14 playoff
contests with Washington last spring. He averaged 19:13 per game during the
regular season and logged top four minutes in the playoffs, averaging 22:17 in
those 14 contests, several of which required overtime.
In 72 career regular season games with Washington, Hamrlik
totaled two goals, 14 points, 36 penalty minutes and was a plus-10. He had a
goal and four points with 12 penalty minutes and was a plus-8 in 14 playoff
games.
Hamrlik’s last goal as a member of the Capitals came on May
12, 2012 in Game 7 of the team’s second-round playoff series against the
Rangers. It was the lone Washington goal in a 2-1 loss.
The first player chosen overall in the 1992 NHL Entry Draft
by the Tampa Bay Lightning and the first player drafted in that franchise’s
history, Hamrlik has also toiled for Edmonton, the New York Islanders, Calgary,
Montreal and Washington over the course of his 20-year NHL career.
Hamrlik is still owed approximately $1.1 million on his
initial contract with Washington, that figure is now the Rangers’
responsibility and it comes off the Capitals’ salary cap figure.
