One day after the NHL and NHL Players' Association reached an agreement on an accelerated compliance buyout, the Montreal Canadiens placed Scott Gomez on unconditional waivers on Wednesday.
Should he clear waivers on Thursday at Noon et, Montreal will be able to buy him out.
Last weekend, the Canadiens told Gomez to stay home until he can be bought out in the summer in order to clear $7.3 million in salary cap space for next season.
The Canadiens did not want Gomez to play this season in case he suffered an injury that would not allow the team to complete the buyout.
"With where the cap is going to be next year, we had to buy out Scott's contract and the safest way to do that without risking him being injured was to send him home," said Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin on the weekend. "It's the rules we have to play by."
However, with the new buyout policy, teams can use up one buyout on one player with at least a $3 million average salary this season and incur a full cap hit, less the $900,000 for not burying him player in the minors, but suffer no cap hit next season or beyond.
