Sykora unclaimed; trade possible

By MICHAEL RUSSO

Right winger Petr Sykora passed through waivers without being claimed Wednesday and will now stay away from the Wild until his future is crystalized.
With the help of agent Allan Walsh, General Manager Chuck Fletcher is trying to trade Sykora and appeared to be getting closer Wednesday.
“I’ll take the next couple days and explore what trade options may be,” Fletcher said. “The first priority will be to try to trade him. If that doesn’t happen, there are other options.”

In today’s salary-cap world, nobody was willing to take Sykora off waivers. A handful of teams would take Sykora but they want the Wild to take a player back in return. Fletcher is willing if it makes sense. “Just because a player isn’t taken off waivers doesn’t mean nobody wants him,” Fletcher said.

Out of respect for Sykora, 33, who has scored 302 goals in 935 games, Fletcher does not plan to ask the veteran of 14 seasons to play for AHL Houston. There’s a European assignment clause in Sykora’s contract but that has to be mutually agreed upon and Sykora is not interested in playing in Europe.

If he’s unable to trade him, Fletcher could assign Sykora to Houston, then recall him on re-entry waivers in hopes of enticing another team to claim him at half the cap hit (about $335,000 each.

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