Entering his 12th NHL season, right winger Alex Chiasson will attempt to catch on with an eighth NHL franchise. On Monday, Boston Bruins GM Don Sweeney announced that they’d signed him to a professional tryout (PTO) agreement.
Chiasson, 32, has bounced around the NHL for more than a decade using his hulking 6-foot-4, 208-pound frame and net-front presence as calling cards. Originally selected by the Dallas Stars in the second round of the 2009 draft, Chiasson burst onto the scene with six goals in his first seven NHL games in 2012-13. In six of his 11 seasons, he’s reached double digits in goals. His best effort came as an Edmonton Oiler in 2018-19 when he buried 22 goals in 73 games.
Chiasson typically does his best work on the power play. Of his 120 career goals, 43, or more than a third, have come with the man advantage. Most recently, he surfaced with the Detroit Red Wings in 2022-23 after signing an AHL tryout deal with the Grand Rapids Griffins, with whom he racked up 20 points in 29 games. He joined the Red Wings in March 2023 and made somewhat of an impression, scoring six goals in 20 games during the stretch run of the season.
In addition to his 651 NHL games, Chiasson has competed in 37 career playoff games, 17 of which came in 2017-18, when he won a Stanley Cup as a member of the Washington Capitals.
While the Bruins obviously have a bigger hole at center than on the wings following the retirements of Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, they need depth all over their forward corps after trading Taylor Hall and Nick Foligno to the Chicago Blackhawks in a salary-dump move and also saying goodbye to UFAs Tyler Bertuzzi and Garnet Hathaway this summer. Needless to say, this team looks very different from the one that set an NHL record with 65 regular-season wins last season.
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