The momentum behind the Ottawa Senators continues, this time with two veteran forwards joining the group for training camp. General manager Pierre Dorion told reporters including Bruce Garrioch of Postmedia that Derick Brassard and Michael Dal Colle will both be with the Senators in camp on professional tryouts.
Brassard, 34, is a familiar face for Ottawa fans, having played parts of two seasons with the team in the past. While his time there was relatively successful, many will remember him only as the piece that the Senators received for a young Mika Zibanejad from the New York Rangers in 2016. While Zibanejad is now a star, Brassard has bounced around, playing for seemingly every team in the league to this point.
After starting with the Columbus Blue Jackets and then going through New York and Ottawa, the veteran forward has played for the Pittsburgh Penguins, Florida Panthers, Colorado Avalanche, New York Islanders, Arizona Coyotes, Philadelphia Flyers, and Edmonton Oilers. Last year saw him record 19 points in 46 games and now he is just searching for a place to play.
Dal Colle, meanwhile, is finally getting a chance with a different organization after spending his entire career to this point with the Islanders. The fifth-overall pick in 2014, he has played just 112 regular season NHL games to this point in his career and has just eight goals. Even his minor league totals haven’t been off-the-charts, though perhaps a fresh start will breathe life back into his career.
Still just 26, Dal Colle has never been able to use his size – 6’3″ – to his advantage, regularly acting like a small perimeter player instead of the power forward that some believed he could be. Now with a chance to showcase what he can do outside of the Islanders system, he’ll have to do more than he has to this point if he wants another NHL deal.
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