5th year right wing Raymond Sawada(27) signs an AHL contract to join St. John’s IceCaps for the 2012/2013. He was reassigned from Texas Stars to the team near the end of last year appearing in 17 regular season and 15 Calder Cup games.
Originally a 2nd round pick of Dallas Stars in the 2004 draft (#52 overall), he has skated in 11 NHL games over three seasons with one goal to his credit. He scored it on his birthday.
In the AHL, the power forward has played in 289 regular and postseason contests for 45 goals and 80 assists, which are somewhat surprisingly low scoring totals for the 6’2″ 205 lbs. high draft pick.
At 27-years old, he’s seemingly still waiting for his breakout campaign but has to be running low on time in North American pro hockey to prove his abilities.
Original story 8/10-12
He would tie his best offensive output in his first full season with St. John’s scoring a new high 13 goals and 16 assists for 29 points but was a dismal -24 in 65 games.
Going into 2013/2014 he signed a deal at the start of the ECHL season with Colorado Eagles, his first venture playing in the lower league.
His numbers were that of a point-per-game player (7-8-15 in 18 contests with a +7 plus/minus) but he must have gotten a bit stir crazy as he up and left for SM-liiga of Finland, joining Tappara but his numbers were similar to what he’d put up in the AHL.
He left there for a year in the EIHL with Belfast Giants and fully exploded with 22 goals and 41 assists in 58 games and added another 2 tallies and 2 helpers in 4 postseason match-ups.
For his 8th pro season, the former Cornell University captain has made a somewhat surprising decision to play 2015/2016 in the Asia League with Oji Eagles, where he should once again dominate on the score sheet.
The 30-year was likely offered a lot of money he couldn’t turn down.
