Breaking: Young goaltender has been placed on waivers today!

It appears that Chicago Blackhawks general manager Stan Bowman was not able to find the trade that he was reportedly looking for.

According to a breaking news report from Sportsnet's National Hockey League insider Elliotte Friedman the Chicago Blackhawks have placed backup goaltender Anton Forsberg on the waiver wire on Monday. Although we have no way of knowing for certain reports since the start of the season have suggested that the Blackhawks were looking to avoid this eventuality by orchestrating a trade for Forsberg. The Blackhawks also likely thought they had considerably more time to work out such a deal but the unexpectedly quick return of star goaltender Corey Crawford to the line up has forced Bowman's hand in this.

It's hard to gauge whether or not there is a team around the National Hockey League that will take a stab at picking up Forsberg on waivers but if I were a betting man I would put my money on at least one team looking to take a chance. Picking him up on waivers becomes even more valuable if you are the only team placing a claim for him as you would be able to immediately send him down to the American Hockey League where you could continue to develop his skills in the hopes of preparing him for a more consistent backup role at the NHL level.

While speaking with Chicago Blackhawks insider Mark Lazerus the Blackhawks general manager himself admitted that he has no way of predicting whether or not Forsberg will be claimed on waivers. Based on his choice of words here however I do think it's safe to suggest that Bowman put a considerable amount of thought into the timing of this move in the hopes of seeing Forsberg slip through waivers and remaining a Blackhawk.

“Goalie is one of the hardest positions to predict as far as waivers,”Bowman said as per Lazerus. “You have six, seven or eight defensemen, so you might take a guy (almost on a whim). But it’s unlikely you’re going to claim a goalie as a ‘maybe.’ We spend a lot of time looking at that. But you can have the best plans and then things change because a team’s got a goalie injured that nobody knew about.”

Only time will tell of course and in this case we should have our answer within the next 24 hours.

[pub]