Veteran right winger Kris Versteeg is expected to sign a contract with Bern SC of Switzerland’s National League. Versteeg’s career in professional hockey has lasted eight full seasons and has included playing for teams such as the Chicago Blackhawks, Toronto Maple Leafs, Philadelphia Flyers, Florida Panthers, Carolina Hurricanes, and most recently, Los Angeles Kings. With Marian Gaborik placed on long-term injured reserve, the Kings pushed to acquire the two-time Stanley Cup winner from the struggling Hurricanes in return for prospect Valentin Zykov and a conditional fifth-round pick on February 29th.
Looks like Kris Versteeg‘s playing career is taking a different path. He’s expected to sign with Bern in Swiss League this wknd.
— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) July 22, 2016
Report: Kris Versteeg To Sign in Swiss League
He signed his last contract extension with the Panthers prior to the 2012-2013 season. This new contract earned him $17.6 million over 4 years at an average salary of $4.4 million per year and left him as an unrestricted free agent following the 2015-2016 season. He will be joining a team that boasted former NHLers Derek Roy, Sean Bergenheim, Andrew Ebbett, Cory Conacher, Trevor Smith, and Chuck Kobasew on the roster last season. The team won the National League Championship last season, their third in the last seven years.
Now 30 and once a four-time 20-goal scorer, Versteeg is coming off of a 15-goal, 38-point season with the ‘Canes and Kings. Due to Carolina’s desire to rebuild around their talented young prospects Noah Hanifin, Elias Lindholm, and Victor Rask, the 2015-2016 season saw them unload many veteran players, including Versteeg and their captain Eric Staal in order to pursue possible complementary prospects. Los Angeles, searching for another scorer to help them make a postseason push, believed Versteeg to be their man and were able to offer the ‘Canes exactly what they were looking for.
Drafted 134th overall by the Boston Bruins in 2004, Versteeg’s career was slow to fully launch, with his first few years spent in the WHL. It wasn’t until the end of the 2005-2006 season that he was called up to the Bruin’s AHL affiliate Providence Bruins, where he played the final 13 games of the season. He began the following season playing in Providence, but found himself traded on February 3rd, 2007 to the Norfolk Generals, Chicago’s AHL affiliate at the time. In the 2007-2008 season, however, Chicago switched its affiliation to the Rockford IceHogs, where Versteeg spent most of the season.
It was in that same year that he earned his first NHL call-up for the Blackhawks, in which he generated two goals and two assists in 13 games. Beginning the following season, Versteeg found a place among the senior squad, producing 53 points in his first full year in the league. In the 2009-2010 season, he played an important role in the Chicago Blackhawks’ Stanley Cup victory, generating 44 points in the regular season and 14 in the postseason.
After Chicago’s Cup run, however, cap issues saw Versteeg forced out in a trade to the Maple Leafs, who then proceeded to trade him to the Philadelphia Flyers before the trade deadline. In the offseason that followed, Versteeg found himself traded yet again, this time to the Florida Panthers, where he spent two and a half seasons before being traded back to Chicago early in the 2013-2014 season. In a repeat of 2010, the Hawks went on to win the Stanley Cup, only to jettison him again in the offseason, this time to Carolina, where he played 63 games before his trade to L.A.
With this contract, Versteeg looks to remain a steady influence on his new team, one who can provide veteran experience along with a respectable rate of point production, despite his age. A solid 30-point winger with a Stanley Cup pedigree, Kris Versteeg could still have a fair bit to offer and should prove himself worthy of the cost.
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