The Minnesota Wild dangled Eric Nystrom through re-entry waivers this week with no takers for a $700,000 salary.
The Dallas Stars, meanwhile, faced a situation in which they could have dipped under the $48.3 million salary floor (thanks, Avery), as ESPN's Pierre LeBrun wrote:
Once Adam Pardy comes off IR in the upcoming week, and the Stars have to make a corresponding roster move to make room for him, it will put the Stars about $300,000 under the payroll minimum.
Because of that, the Stars will need to acquire a player in order to get back above the floor, and Stars GM Joe Nieuwendyk has been working the phones this week looking at what's out there. Since he's already carrying eight defensemen, our guess is he is going to try to pick up a forward.
That forward, it turns out, was Nystrom, who was traded to the Stars today for future considerations — because they had no use for him at half the price. Ah, NHL economics.
As mentioned on yesterday's blog, re-entry waivers would not cut it for the Stars' salary-cap issue. They needed $1.2 million in salary to get to the floor. Now they get $1.4 million in each of next two years. Wild doesn't have to pick up a cent.
More from First Round Bust and Defending Big D. Hey, if nothing else, Nystrom has a good conversation starter with Mark Fistric: