{"id":50640,"date":"2019-07-11T20:48:35","date_gmt":"2019-07-12T00:48:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=50640"},"modified":"2020-12-26T16:32:51","modified_gmt":"2020-12-26T21:32:51","slug":"michael-del-zotto-signs-with-anaheim-ducks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2019\/07\/11\/michael-del-zotto-signs-with-anaheim-ducks\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Del Zotto Signs With Anaheim Ducks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Free agent defenseman\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/d\/delzomi01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Michael Del Zotto<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0signs with the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/nhl-teams\/ducks\/\" target=\"_self\">Anaheim Ducks<\/a> on a one-year contract worth $750,000. This contract carries him through the 2019-20 season.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Michael Del Zotto signed a one year deal ($750 000) with the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AnaheimDucks?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@AnaheimDucks<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Renaud Lavoie (@renlavoietva) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/renlavoietva\/status\/1149467626411741184?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 11, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h1>Michael Del Zotto Signs With the Anaheim Ducks<\/h1>\n<p>Over his 10-year NHL career Del Zotto\u00a0has played for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/nhl-teams\/rangers\/\" target=\"_self\">New York Rangers<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/nhl-teams\/predators\/\" target=\"_self\">Nashville Predators<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/nhl-teams\/flyers\/\" target=\"_self\">Philadelphia Flyers<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/nhl-teams\/canucks\/\" target=\"_self\">Vancouver Canucks<\/a>, Ducks and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/nhl-teams\/blues\/\" target=\"_self\">St. Louis Blues<\/a>. He has put up 54\u00a0goals and 167\u00a0assists for 221\u00a0career points in 608\u00a0career games. He was originally drafted in the 1st round, 20th\u00a0overall of the 2008\u00a0NHL draft by the Rangers.<\/p>\n<p>Last season he scored one goal and nine assists for ten points. He also added eight minutes in penalties. His possession numbers were 50.0 percent Corsi\u00a0and a relative Corsi of 1.2.<\/p>\n<p>Del Zotto only played 42 games last year, being a healthy scratch along the way many times.<\/p>\n<h2>What This Means for the Future<\/h2>\n<p>Del Zotto, at only 29 years old, is already past his prime. At this point, he&#8217;s nothing more than a depth defender and should add some stability to the blueline with this team. If needed to, he can log some minutes in a pinch and fill in for any injuries. A one-year deal is very low-risk and a smart signing.<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s a good skater and mobile, considering his injury history. Del Zotto also has leadership and playoff experience, both invaluables for a younger team like the Sabres. It&#8217;s an unknown whether he&#8217;ll start the season in the NHL or the minors, but either way, he&#8217;ll be a mentor to Buffalo&#8217;s younger pieces. It&#8217;s a smart signing for both ways, as it also gives Del Zotto an opportunity to prove himself again as a reliable option.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2019\/01\/del-zotto.jpg\" alt=\"\">NEW YORK, NEW YORK &#8211; NOVEMBER 12: Michael Del Zotto #4 of the Vancouver Canucks smiles before a face off against the New York Rangers in the first period at Madison Square Garden on November 12, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Elsa\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Free agent defenseman\u00a0Michael Del Zotto\u00a0signs with the\u00a0Anaheim Ducks on a one-year contract worth $750,000. This contract carries him through the 2019-20 season. Michael Del Zotto signed a one year deal ($750 000) with the @AnaheimDucks &mdash; Renaud Lavoie (@renlavoietva) July 11, 2019 Michael Del Zotto Signs With the Anaheim Ducks Over his 10-year NHL career [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3006,"featured_media":40232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20,34],"tags":[182,37,5738,667,2569,38,662,955],"class_list":["post-50640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ducks","category-news","tag-buffalo-sabres","tag-hockey","tag-hockey-news","tag-michael-del-zotto","tag-news","tag-nhl","tag-nhl-free-agency","tag-nhl-news"],"modified_by":"Dan Mount, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3006"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}