Andrew Ference done for year with hip injury
Former Edmonton Oilers captain Andrew Ference will have season-ending hip surgery, the team announced Thursday.
The 36-year-old Ference, who gave up his ‘C’ this year because of a diminished role, is a minus-4 and has 0 points in six games played. Ference hasn’t played since Nov. 27. In those six games, he’s averaged just 13:04 of ice-time.
Ference has one year left on a four-year $13 million contract at an annual salary cap hit of $3.25 million.
Questions about Ference’s future with the Oilers have swirled most of the season. Early in the year, Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal answered a question about Ference’s contract and why moving the defenseman was difficult.
There’s lots of effort in Ference’s game, as always, but he’s running out of gas at his age, just as Ryan Smyth did because of the style of game both play. It happens to everybody. Ference has a no-trade, no-move clause in his four-year, $13-million contract, which runs through this season and next. He can’t be sent to Bakersfield, Calif., like Nikita Nikitin if the Oilers don’t like his play. If Edmonton wants to trade the 36-year-old defenceman, they have to consult with him first to see if he’ll waive the no-trade clause. Admittedly, Ference isn’t the player he once was; he’s a sixth or seventh D-man now on a team that is far from being a Stanley Cup contender. If he continues in that role all season, there is a reasonable chance that Edmonton will buy its way out of the final year of Ference’s contract, which would be two-thirds of $3.25 million ($2.145 million) spread out over two years on the team salary cap.
Copper and Blue wonders about the length of the injury and what a stint on LTIR by Ference could do for Edmonton’s salary cap situation. If Ference is placed on LTIR and is hurt through next year, this could provide the Oilers with some cap relief.
In spite of Ference’s diminished on-ice production, he has been a positive force in Edmonton’s community. Earlier in the year he was “kidnapped” and then saved by SpiderMable, a 6-year-old named Mable Tooke dressed in a Spider-Man costume battling acute lymphoblastic leukemia. This act of kindness gripped the city of Edmonton and went viral.
The Oilers signed Ference in the summer of 2013 to a four-year deal. He has played 907 games in his career and notched 225 points.
MORE FROM YAHOO HOCKEY
– – – – – – –
Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper
