Winnipeg Jets place Nate Schmidt on unconditional waivers for purposes of a buyout

For just the third time in franchise history the Jets are optioning to buyout a player as Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff is reporting this morning that Nate Schmidt is on unconditional waivers for purposes of a buyout. It’s a year to the day the club bought out Blake Wheeler and five years ago today they bought out Mark Stuart.

We were wondering if the Jets would be able to make some cap space and sure enough the affable Minnesotan was put on the chopping block as a victim of his contract which is too high for his current role as a 6/7 defenceman.

According to the folks at Puckpedia this will result in savings from his 5.95 million dollar cap of:

Year 1 $2.72M ($3.23M savings)
Year 2 $1.62M Cap Hit/Cost

Of course in the unlikely event he gets claimed then the Jets would be off the hook.

He was a member of the Jets for the last three seasons and a big factor in lightening things up for this group off the ice.