10th year veteran left wing Paul Bissonnette(15) for the first time in five years found himself on the outside as an unrestricted free agent after five seasons under contract with Arizona Coyotes.
Definitely a character guy out there for a team, he scored himself an invite to tryout with St. Louis Blues‘ training camp. He was released as the season was about to begin.
He was first rumored to sign with Cardiff Devils but then pulled the switch and inked a pto to join the Coyotes‘ farm club Portland Pirates.
The 6’3″ 220 lbs. forward is well known for putting his nose in the middle of trouble but in recent years has seemed to shy away from it mostly averaging only 50 minutes a season in the box and has fought only occasionally in the last three years.
Maybe his little goal scorer spree in the EIHL (6 goals, 11 assists in 15 games), while the NHL was on lockout, made him think of his game differently. He has 202 games in the big league to his credit and almost surprisingly is the proud owner of a +7 rating.
He was released from his tryout with Portland and the next day Manchester Monarchs chose to sign him.
He’s used very sparingly on a fourth line and seems mostly to be there to give the younger players a guy with some toughness and leadership to feed off.
The 29-year old was originally a Pittsburgh Penguins‘ 4th round pick in the 2003 draft (#121 overall) and played in their system for four years.
