Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/06/2011 (4352 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE big splashes came last week and through their first draft over the weekend, but the Winnipeg Jets continue to efficiently take care of some business.

The club has made qualifying offers to three key cogs — captain and leading scorer Andrew Ladd, right-winger Blake Wheeler and defenceman Zach Bogosian — and also did the same for defencemen Arturs Kulda and Brett Festerling, right-winger Spencer Machacek, and centres Ben Maxwell and Riley Holzapfel prior to Monday afternoon’s deadline.

The qualifying offers mean the Jets can match offer sheets from rival clubs or receive draft-pick compensation if a player leaves.

The offers to Ladd and Wheeler had been previously reported and doing the same for Bogosian is key — he’s just 20 and already has 199 NHL games under his belt. A 6-foot-3, 215-pound product of Massena, N.Y., Bogosian was drafted third overall in the 2008 NHL entry draft by the Atlanta Thrashers and had five goals and 12 assists in 71 games last year.

BARKER ON WAIVERS: Defenceman Cam Barker, a Winnipeg product, was put on waivers on Tuesday as part of a process Michael Russo of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune is reporting could end with a buyout. Russo is reporting the Wild could buy out Barker’s $3.25-million salary for 2011-12 for $1.08 million and then incur a $375,000 cap hit in 2011-12 and $542,000 in 2012-13.

Barker would need to clear waivers twice for Minnesota to complete the buyout.

Barker was signed to a three-year, $9.25-million deal by the Chicago Blackhawks after the 2009 season and then traded to Minnesota for Kim Johnsson.

Barker had 40 points with the Blackhawks in 2008-09 but has seen his point totals dip to 21 in 2009-10 and just five last year in 52 games with the Wild.

GOOD GRADES: The National Post’s Michael Traikos asked Mark Seidel, the director of scouting of North American Central Scouting, to grade how the seven Canadian teams performed at the NHL entry draft.

The Jets, for the record, finished atop the class with an A+.

Here’s what Seidel said to the Post of the Jets’ work at the draft:

“It became very obvious that Craig Heisinger and Kevin Cheveldayoff had been doing their homework because they went off the board and selected a big-time favourite of ours, Mark Scheifele from the Barrie Colts, who was arguably Canada’s best player at the Under-18 world championship…

“Their two third-round picks represented second-round value in the huge defender from Swift Current, Adam Lowry, and the future NCAA superstar, Brennan Serville…

“In the fourth round, we think the Jets got the absolute best value of the entire draft with Zach Yuen from the Tri-City Americans. At NACS, we had Yuen ranked No. 52 overall and think he has a chance to become a very good NHL defender and for the Jets to trade up to No. 119 to get him showed a vision and competence that bodes very well for the fans of the Jets.”

The grades for the other six Canadian squads were:

Toronto Maple Leafs (A); Calgary Flames (A-); Edmonton Oilers (A-); Vancouver Canucks (B-); Montreal Canadiens (C+) and Ottawa Senators (C-).

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca