If there is one thing that’s happened to Cory Conacher since his trade from the Tampa Bay Lightning to the Ottawa Senators in spring 2013, it’s the fact he hasn’t latched on to his two landing points since the deal.
Once heralded as a eventual Calder Award candidate, Conacher was made expendable by the club because of it’s undersized corps of forwards. Too many. Ottawa took him on and Conacher outright struggled with the Senators, scoring a total of 6 goals and 19 assists in 72 games in Ottawa, as well as a plus-14 in his time with the club.
On March 4th of this year, the Sens placed Conacher on waivers, planning to send him to Binghamton of the AHL… That wasn’t going to happen as Conacher was still a interesting property for NHL clubs. The Buffalo Sabres wasted no time in claiming him and inserting him into their lineup. He scored 3 goals and 3 assists in his 19 game stint with the club. And now the Sabres have not extended a qualifying offer to him, makign him a free agent come tomorrow.
While I loved the idea of the Lightning bringing Conacher back through a waiver claim, I don’t know if the club would show any interest in bringing him back to Tampa now. A waiver claim in March would ahe been a morale boost for the Bolts Tampacuse corps. But with Jonathan Drouin waiting in the wings and other forward depth in the system ready to play in the NHL, adding Conacher back to the roster just doesn’t look like it’ll be in the cards. Best wishes to him.
