In today's deadline article, I talked about the possibility of the Avalanche getting a look at Tyler Weiman. Later, thanks to the fine folks at AvalancheDB, I discovered that Weiman is waiver eligible. Since I'm kind of a "why" guy, I thought I'd try to figure out how that came to be.
The NHL waiver rules are of a morass of complexity, but I think I've got this right.
Weiman signed his first NHL contract in 2004. Although he signed 3 days before his 20th birthday, for contract & waiver purposes he was 20 (CBA 9.2 Age of Players: "age"...means a Player's age on September 15 of the calendar year in which he signs an SPC, regardless of his actual age on the date he signs such SPC) (SBC = Standard Player Contract).
According tho the chart here, Weiman is exempt from waivers for 4 years or 80 NHL games. Thus, last year was his last year for waiver exemption. This year, the Avs will have to waive Weiman if they want to send him to the minors.
They will not have to put him on recall waivers to call him up, however - something they have to do with (some) players on a 1-way contract or players on a 2-way contract who make $100k in the minors. Weiman does have a 2-way contract, but he makes $60 grand in the AHL. I remember the Kings had a situation a couple years back where they couldn't call up a goalie (Labarbara?) because he would have been eligible for recall waivers. Thankfully, that doesn't apply to Weiman.
So, to sum up: Weiman can be recalled by the Avs, but once he's up, he's here until the end of the season because he'd have to clear waivers to go back down to Cleveland. Does that make sense?