The Vancouver Canucks placed Aatu Raty on waivers Wednesday afternoon, and the timing tells you exactly how tight things have gotten.
Elliotte Friedman was first with the news. Now 31 other clubs get a free look at a 23-year-old Finnish forward carrying an $850,000 cap hit.
The backdrop is ugly. The Canucks have dropped five straight and sit at 2-6-0.
They've also been outscored by 12 goals. In mid-October, that's how depth players end up on the wire.
Raty didn't give the front office much reason to wait. He dressed for four of the eight games, scoring once and going minus-2.
He also wasn't among the Canucks who dressed Tuesday night in a 3-2 loss to the Islanders.
That's not much of a runway. But on a club losing this often, nobody gets a long one.
Manny Malhotra's bottom six is running out of answers
Eight games into the Manny Malhotra era, the coaching staff is still shuffling the bottom of the lineup looking for anything that sticks.
Arshdeep Bains carries an identical cap hit and has three points in seven games. In a race for one cheap depth spot, that gap matters.
Max Sasson has dressed every night and chipped in two goals. Small edges, sure. They pile up fast when management starts counting bodies.
Waivers in October work like a used car parked on the front lawn with a price in the window.
Plenty of people slow down to look. Very few pull into the driveway.
Here's where this gets frustrating. Raty is not the reason Vancouver keeps losing.
Kevin Lankinen owns a .779 save percentage through seven appearances. Leevi Merilainen sits at .926 over the same number.
Running a fringe forward through waivers doesn't touch that problem. It's tinkering at the edges of a roster with a hole in the crease, and it's the wrong fix.
So who actually answers for a start like this?
The road trip doesn't get easier. Vancouver visits Florida on Thursday night, and the Panthers just hung seven on Columbus.
Tampa Bay waits on Saturday. If this skid stretches to seven, the next name on the wire probably won't come with a bargain cap hit.
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Did the Canucks give up on Aatu Raty too fast?
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