Zach Sanford gets a chance to see his old Ottawa teammates on Thursday

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There will be a familiar face across the ice at the Canada Life Center Thursday night.

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It does not take Zach Sanford longing to see his old Ottawa Senators teammates.

He was given to the Winnipeg Jets for a fifth-round pick to try and help them cope with the off-season. He made his debut on Tuesday and will skate against the Senators.

He was getting ready to go to the airport on Monday to accompany the senators to New York at 6 p.m. 5pm when Sanford was called up by general manager Pierre Dorion around 6pm. 14.30 that he had been sent to the Jets.

“OK, maybe I’ll stay here the rest of the year,” Sanford said he thought. “But … I was not so surprised when I got the call.”

Acquired from St. Louis Blues to center Logan Brown in the training camp at Ottawa, senators hope that Sanford’s playoff experience, and winning a Stanley Cup, will help the club get a spot in the NHL’s big dance.

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Sanford said he has experience in the Western Conference and hopes it will help down the stretch.

“I spent a lot of time with St. Louis, so the bigger, heavier (style) that definitely fits my game,” Sanford said. “Hangs a lot more on puck. Hold in (East) is a kind of barrel and gun, up and down the ice.

“I’m excited to see where I fit into this team and see what I can do to help the team win. It’s nice to be back to something you know.”

Sanford is looking forward to its role in Winnipeg. He played 12 minutes in the club’s 4-0 win over the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday at home.

“It’s good for me,” Sanford said. “It’s exciting to come here and try to make a playoff push at the end of the year with these guys, and see the guys today that we have here.”

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WILL HE STAY OR DO HE WANT TO GO?

Former Ottawa winger Evgenii Dadonov will not leave Las Vegas.

The NHL on Wednesday canceled the deal that would have sent Dadonov to the Anaheim Ducks by Monday’s NHL trade deadline.

“The deal could not be terminated because Dadonov’s contract contains a restricted non-trade clause that has not been complied with,” the NHL said.

Somehow the Knights thought Dadonov did not have a 10-team “no-move” clause or general manager Kelly McCrimmon ignored it completely and went ahead with the deal in hopes that Dadonov would just accept it.

That did not happen, so Dadonov stays seated and dresses Thursday.

The NHL Players’ Association has been heavily involved in the process because this decision was a precedent. The union is not the least bit happy that this agreement was allowed to take place at all and took so long to settle.

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The Central Registry approved the deal, but Dadonov refused when he was informed because he had Anaheim on his 10-team “no-trade” list. He was to have his list for the senators before July 1, 2021, and the club received it on time.

Anyone wondering why Dadonov has a California-based team on his list need look no further than the business side. Tax rates are higher in California than they are in Nevada, so 33-year-old Dadonov has more home pay.

This falls on the knights no matter where people try to put the blame. Vegas had Dadonov under contract for nearly nine months and did not do the necessary due diligence. The respected website capfriendly.com shows his “no move”, so how could the organization that signs his payslips not know?

The senators swapped Dadonov for the Knights on July 28, 2021 in exchange for defense Nick Holden. The deal allowed the club to get his $ 5 million salary for the next two seasons out of the books and made sense because he had not lived up to expectations here in Ottawa.

Vegas was not on his 10-team list, so the organization was allowed to enter into the deal without permission.

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Twitter: @sungarrioch