The Buffalo Sabres have placed Conor Sheary on waivers, two days before their season opener in Columbus.
Elliotte Friedman flagged it Tuesday afternoon, in a one-line post that also carried a Rangers name.
Sheary already knows the building. He spent 2018-19 and 2019-20 in Buffalo, playing 133 games before finishing that second season back in Pittsburgh.
He hits the wire with 655 NHL games on his résumé. The best of them came in 2016-17, when he scored 23 goals for the Penguins.
There's real postseason mileage too, with 72 playoff games career-wise and 45 of them packed into his first two springs in Pittsburgh.
The recent numbers are thinner. With the Rangers last season, he managed seven goals in 62 games.
Putting him on the wire before a single regular-season shift is a strange way to run a reunion, and the Sabres don't come out of it looking decisive.
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Rangers expose former second-round defenseman to waiver claim
The Rangers put Vincent Iorio on waivers too, and they open their season tonight against the Bruins.
The 23-year-old right-shot defenseman went 55th overall to Washington in 2021, out of the WHL's Brandon Wheat Kings.
Last season was a tour. He played 21 games in San Jose, dipped down to the Barracuda, then finished with six games for the Rangers.
Three teams in one season? That's the hockey version of living out of a duffel bag.
Across 36 NHL games, he's still waiting on his first goal, with four assists to show for it.
The American Hockey League work is sturdier. He logged 190 regular-season games with Hershey and posted a +26 rating there in 2023-24.
Both players carry the same $850,000 cap hit. Sheary's deal ends in unrestricted free agency, while Iorio is headed for restricted status.
Mike Sullivan's Rangers went 2-2-0 in exhibition play and closed with a 6-1 win over the Islanders last Friday.
Lindy Ruff's Sabres went 1-2-1 and dropped their final tune-up 3-1 to Pittsburgh last Saturday.
Does anybody out there want that kind of mileage on a 34-year-old winger? The answer decides whether Sheary's second Buffalo chapter ends before it ever starts.
Should another NHL team claim Conor Sheary off waivers?
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