Rangers place Biron, Asham on waivers

GREENBURGH, N.Y. -- The New York Rangers have placed backup goaltender Martin Biron and forward Arron Asham on waivers. If they are unclaimed by noon ET Tuesday the Rangers would have the option to send the players to the Hartford Wolf Pack, the organization's American Hockey League affiliate.

It's not clear if Biron, 36, would report if he was assigned to Hartford.

"I don't know," Biron said when asked if he would consider retiring rather than play in the AHL. "I think there's many options ahead of me. I just was put on waivers. I'll see what happens with that. There's many different options that are going to be presented to me and I'll see what fits the best. It's not the best-case scenario obviously. But I'm going to figure it out."

Biron has allowed nine goals on 38 shots in two games for a 7.61 goals-against average and .763 save percentage.

Asham, 35, has no points and is a minus-3 with 14 penalty minutes in three games.

"It's the way she goes," Asham said. "I have no hard feelings. It's part of the business."

Biron's contract carries a $1.3 million salary-cap charge according to Capgeek.com, but if he clears waivers and is sent to the AHL his NHL cap-charge would be reduced to $375,000 (formula is his salary minus $925,000, per the Collective Bargaining Agreement). Asham's contract carries a cap-charge of $1 million, which would be reduced to $75,000 if he clears waivers and is sent down.

"It's a performance-based business and the organization felt that Marty's first two performances were not what we expected and decided to put him on waivers," Rangers coach Alain Vigneault said when he asked about the decision to waive Biron. "We're going to get together [Monday] as a group and talk about where we go from there. We'll see what happens in the next couple of hours."

Vigneault indicated that AHL goalie Cam Talbot could be brought up to replace Biron. Talbot is 2-0-1 with a 2.54 GAA and .918 save percentages in three games this season.

Veteran NHL goalie Johan Hedberg also will be considered since he was with the Rangers early in training camp on a professional tryout contract.

"At this stage here we felt that for our team that's the decision we needed to make," Vigneault said of waiving Biron. "I said before we need a backup that can play 15 to 20 games and play them well. We'll see where we go from here."

Vigneault indicated the Rangers will be looking to add skill to the lineup in place of Asham. Chris Kreider and J.T. Miller are candidates to be called up.

Miller, who was with the Rangers at the start of the season and played nearly 12 minutes in the season opener at the Phoenix Coyotes, has four goals in three games with Hartford. Kreider has two goals and an assist for three points in four AHL games.

"These are hockey decisions that our players understand," Vigneault said. "Right now, with Martin and Arron, we just felt it was the right thing for our team to do. With Rick Nash and [Carl] Hagelin not being there we wanted to probably bring in a little bit more skill on our team and those are the things we're going to discuss [Monday]."

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