I know "sending them to WBS" is a popular fallback but realistically, I don't think Archi nor Kapanen make it through waivers, especially at their salary and cap hit (Kapanen's likely cap hit). That's a no-brainer pick-up for the likes of Arizona who then hope he rebounds so they can send him out for a pick at the TDL. Teams always tend to pick up guys like Archi on the waivers as well. So, I don't think that should be a realistic part of the discussion. If they thought Kapanen was a demotable asset, they wouldn't have qualified him. Worst case, you scratch him or trade him.
Zohorna is going to be a dime-a-dozen guy. If he was 5'10 180lbs, no one would want him on the roster so there is a bit of bias towards his height and weight despite the fact he doesn't use it to his advantage all that much. They should have a guy over in the Czech showing him videos of Lucic, Kreider, Hornqvist, Wilson, etc and encouraging him to morph his game around that style. Otherwise, you're Brian Boyle without the production.
But to your last sentence, that's 5 guys in depth...even if everyone else is a pipe dream. That's quite a few guys to be able to bring up.
I don't think a single person here would lose sleep if Archibald were to be claimed through waivers, since the general sentiment of him being signed was not popular. But even if you assume the front office wants him around, there's nothing to suggest he should be a full time NHLer. He's perfectly adept to sit in the press box as the 13th forward given what he brings (4th liner at most) and the $900K he's making.
Kapanen, on the other hand, cannot be paid $2M+ and be sitting in the press box. If he's being paid that much, he needs to be a consistent middle 6 contributor. How confident are we that's what's going to happen? I would have been perfectly fine to let him walk as a UFA and sign someone else, so I can only infer that either he was going to be re-signed for cheap (but there's no deal and now there's arbitration) or because he had some trade value and that's why he was qualified.
So if Kapanen is re-signed as sucks so badly that we're going to put him on waivers, then he damn well better get claimed or we'll be stuck with a substantial cap hit. So the concern about Kap getting claimed off waivers is nonexistent for me.
Re the others, here's how I would rank the guys who have a realistic shot at making the team -- leaving out Kapanen and any other additions:
1) DOC -- a sure bet to make this team as the 3rd (more likely) or 4th line LW
2) Zohorna & Poehling -- similar caliber of players and likely fighting for that same 4th line LW position.
3) Puustinen -- he's a more obvious Kapanen-type replacement for a scoring type RW.
4) Hallander -- he's more of a McGinn-type replacement as a 2 way and PK'ing RW if we want to replace McGinn with a guy who's making $2M less.
Given that Puusy and Hallander are waiver exempt, they will have to clearly outperform others to earn a spot, but it's within the realm of reason for them to do so.
