May 24: The contract for Elvenes in Sweden has officially been announced, noting that it is for two years.
May 11: While it has taken a few months longer than he originally planned, Ducks prospect winger Lucas Elvenes is expected to return to the SHL and sign with HV71, reports SportExpressen’s Johan Svensson, who adds that several other teams in Sweden’s top league also were showing interest in him.
Back in January, the 22-year-old worked out an agreement to mutually terminate his contract with Vegas with an eye on him going back to play in his native Sweden (and quite possibly the Olympics). But to get to that point, he had to clear unconditional waivers first. He didn’t.
Instead, Elvenes became just the second-ever player to be claimed from those waivers as Anaheim picked him up with an eye on bolstering their farm team. He did just that as he collected 33 points in 43 games with San Diego, a nice improvement on the 10 in 20 contests he had with Henderson. However, it wasn’t enough to earn an opportunity to suit up with Anaheim.
Now that his entry-level contract is set to expire in July, Elvenes now has the chance to go back overseas without any restriction and he appears to be set to do so. The Ducks can retain his NHL rights by issuing him a qualifying offer and there’s little reason for them not to do that as they’d be able to hold onto his rights through the 2026-27 season in case he decides to try playing in North America again down the road.
Awww you can’t drop that unconditional waivers fun fact and then not say who the other player was! Lol I’m curious now
this dude’s got good numbers if I’m the Ducks I’m trying to entice the man to stick around.
@Brian, while I’m still digging for a source for @RedKing22’s comment, I did see that TheHockeyWriters.com states “…no team has ever placed a claim on this type of waived player” (link – link to thehockeywriters.com). That said, is another source of yours counting Evander Kane?
Not Brian, but the only other one that comes to mind is Niko Hovinen. The Oilers claimed him off unconditional waivers in 2013 as he was trying to terminate his deal with Philadelphia.
@Gavin – Thanks for saving me some extra legwork! :) I’m guessing that guy’s HockeyDB, and EliteProspects pages are in like-new condition, too.