A familiar face is back with the organization.
This afternoon, the Ottawa Senators announced they have signed forward Chris Kelly to a one year deal worth $900,000. The 35 year old spent parts of seven seasons in the Senators organization before being traded to the Boston Bruins at the trade deadline in 2011.
Kelly was injured early in the 2015/2016 season and has been working hard to get back to 100%. Assuming he’s healthy, Kelly is a solid addition to the bottom six and seems to slot in perfectly in that fourth line centre position. He provides a much-needed veteran presence at the bottom end of the line up and will be a solid addition to the team’s penalty kill.
May not be good news for young guys like Curtis Lazar and Nick Paul hoping to crack the roster at the centre ice position though. Going to be interesting to see who rounds out the roster in 2016/2017. Lazar, Paul, Dzingel and the yet to be signed Matt Puempel will all be battling for spots when training camp opens in September.
Kelly was always popular during his time in Ottawa and if you ask people within the organization, he is as well-liked as anyone who has ever laced them up here in Ottawa.
Welcome back, Chris!
Some comments from Pierre Dorion (including updates on Hoffman and Ceci) and Chris Kelly courtesy of SensTV.
