other teams know this aswell and with goalies like Hutchinson/Halak/Lehtonen/ward/Bernier/Johnson/Khudobin and probably Lehner when he's not qualified all available in the UFA market for cheap, why would a team pay anything for McB?
why would you trade Sparks or Pickard? they both will need to be placed on waivers to play for the Marlies what if you moved 1 for a 6th round pick at best probably and then lost the other to waivers? then the Marlies wouldn't have a quality starter. seem like a waste to move 1. doubt both would get picked off waivers.
Ya, this isn't wrong. The team could just pick their backup out of the three and waive the other 2 for the AHL. I agree none of them are worth much in a trade, and any of them could be claimed on waivers.
But remember that any team making a claim would have to keep them on their NHL roster or waive them again to get them into the minors. So a team that snags them from us would have to be in need of an NHL backup, and think Sparks or Pickard is their guy.
If a player clears, then they can go up and down between leagues freely for a while (a month?). That's how we got Pickard in the AHL right away, because he had cleared waivers just a little earlier.