The Buffalo Sabres, have signed former Vee Zac Dalpe to a one-year contract, the team announced on Monday. Dalpe was a Restricted Free Agent after spending last season in Vancouver and was not qualified by the team, thus making him a free agent. Now, the Sabres didn’t go into details about the contract, including if it was a NHL contract or a two-way deal between the Sabres and their farm team in Rochester; likely the latter.
Good to see Dalpe land on his feet with the Sabres after some uncertainty with the Canucks in the first few months of the NHL off-season. Dalpe did play a career high 55 games with Vancouver last season but his ice time was limited under John Tortorella. In 55 games with the Canucks, Dalpe collected four goals and seven points, while playing an energy role in their bottom six. Dalpe will be at Sabres Training Camp in September and likely will dress for some NHL exhibition games, trying to impress the new Sabres brass. If he doesn’t break camp with the big club, he’s most likely penciled in as go-to guy in Rochester. He’s got plenty of AHL experience, playing parts of the three seasons in the AHL in the Carolina organization, where he’s amassed 142 points in 186 regular season games.
Best of luck to Zac as he continues his professional career back east in upper state New York. Speaking of which, as I mentioned on Twitter, Zac and his younger brother Ben will once again be playing near each other. Last year it was Ben in Penticton with the Vees and Zac in Vancouver with the Canucks. Now it’s Zac in Buffalo and Ben in Potsdam, New York, as he enters his freshman season at Clarkson University. Again the Dalpe brothers will be roughly be four hours apart.
Sabres Press Release:
The Buffalo Sabres today announced that the team has signed forward Zac Dalpe to a one-year contract.
Dalpe (6’1”, 195 lbs., 11/1/89) played a career-high 55 NHL games as a member of the Vancouver Canucks during the 2013-14 season, recording seven points (4+3). A former second-round draft pick (45th overall in 2008), Dalpe has appeared in a total of 96 NHL games in his one year with the Canucks and three previous seasons with the Carolina Hurricanes.
Prior to last season, the center from Paris, Ontario spent the better part of each of his professional seasons in the American Hockey League, earning AHL All-Rookie honors in 2011. In parts of five AHL seasons, Dalpe has totaled 142 points (68+74) and 52 penalty minutes in 186 regular-season AHL games, and added 19 points (9+10) in 29 postseason contests.
pentictonvees.wordpress.com 