Just saw this on Mirtle's blog:

Ducks defenceman Mathieu Schneider cleared waivers at noon today, which puts Brian Burke in a tough spot.

Does it though? MF37 wrote this morning about how Brian Burke isn't looking like a genius GM based on his handling of Bryzgalov, Bertuzzi and now Schneider. Mirtle thinks this is a problem for the Ducks because if they bring Schneider back up from their AHL affiliate he would need to clear re-entry waivers, and the Ducks would be on the hook for half of his salary and cap hit.

The thing is... if Brian Burke did this in Toronto he'd be a genius. He has a player whose cap hit is way too large for his skill set, if the Ducks could afford to pay Schneider his contract there'd be no point in them even bothering to put him through re-entry waivers. Obviously that wouldn't have worked on the Muskoka Five due to their NMCs, but at least the possibility that Burke will be the first GM to demote a player to the AHL and leave him there for cap relief exists. That's a big step. Update: Commenter blurr1974 pointed out that under the CBA, players over 35 count against the salary cap, even in the AHL.

It sucks to be Schneider in that case, and the NHLPA would surely file a complaint on his behalf, but there are probably worse things than being paid millions of dollars to play in the AHL. Let's see how this situation plays off before we declare Brian Burke a bad GM, he might come out of this looking like Conn Smythe.