WTF is going on here?

So I read this today, because I check ESPN's NHL page like Dr. House takes Vicodin. Then something in my wee little brain says, hey, I've heard this guy's name before vis-a-vis the Sharks. So I do a bit of searching, and find Traverse's player card on TSN, the Canadian sports channel.

Trades:

28-Sep-06:	Montreal Canadiens claimed Patrick Traverse off waivers from the San Jose Sharks.
10-Jul-06:	Signed as an unrestricted free agent by the San Jose Sharks.
09-Sep-04:	Signed as an unrestricted free agent by the Dallas Stars.
21-Feb-01:	Montreal Canadiens traded Eric Weinrich to the Boston Bruins for Patrick Traverse.
18-Nov-00:	Mighty Ducks of Anaheim traded Patrick Traverse and Andrei Nazarov to the Boston Bruins for Sami Pahlsson.
12-Jun-00:	Ottawa Senators traded Patrick Traverse to the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim for Joel Kwiatkowski.
20-Jun-92:	Drafted by the Ottawa Senators in the 3rd round (50th overall) in 1992.

First of all, how dumb are the Habs to trade Eric Weinrich, a solid NHL defenseman, for Traverse, who was 27 at the time with about a hundred NHL games played? But I digress.

So lemme get this straight. The Sharks sign Traverse in June as an unrestricted free agent. He gets no playing time. He gets sent down to the minors. In the process, he has to clear waivers. Montreal claims him off of waivers. But he doesn't play for Montreal either. So the Sharks trade one player they never use, Martin Biron, for a different player they never used, Patrick Traverse.

McLaren is nursing some injury or another, but we have Carle, Ehrhoff, Hannan, Vlasic, Gorges, Davison, and Murray. Do we really need a 9th defenseman? A 32-year-old who last had anything approaching a full NHL season in 2002-2003? Who has 279 career NHL games, and 65 career NHL points? This makes zero sense to me.