To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Stephane Da Costa has cleared waivers after being largely invisible and unproductive in his short stint with the big club. Mind you, it's not like he was afforded the greatest artillery on his wings. But yeah, fair to say he got his shot.
In his place, the team has called up Derek Grant, presumably to play left wing on the fourth and maybe take a few draws as well. In his five games with Ottawa last season, Grant played a grand total of 33:28 at even-strength, basically Kassian minutes. At that time MacLean was more comportable using him on the penalty kill, and considering how taxed the PK has been thus far, any reinforcements can't hurt.
In August, Corey Pronman ranked Derek as the organizations 13th best prospect (just 4 spots behind Da Costa!!!) and described him as a, "…big forward who plays good defensive hockey. He skates fine, and he has a little skill, too. He is a potential third line forward."
And Luke Richardson talking Grant last January:
"…but I think the biggest, and it's not a surprise, I think it's just the biggest plus for ourselves and personally for him, is Derek Grant. If you look at his play and his numbers are probably impressive, especially the shorthanded goal department, but if you watched him play now and you watched him play last year…just taking charge as a big centerman, getting physical and being able to play against the top line on the other team every night and go a great job. And he's got the dynamic part where he can check so well that when they turn the puck over, he's dangerous offensively. The other night again, it was a 2-1 game and him and David Dziurzynski in the neutral zone just intercepted pucks and disrupted their whole power play. (They) ended up creating a breakaway chance and put the game away for us with a nice shorthanded goal. I think it's about his fourth or fifth goal shorthanded, he leads the league in that department. Just taking charge all over the ice, it's great to see. He's an NHL body and he's got an NHL stride and now he's starting to show the other intangibles that go along with it – where he's a name that has really jumped up and not just in the AHL but also in the depth chart of the Ottawa Senators."
Probably the bigger story here is that the team did not call up Mika Zibanejad. Ottawa could surely use a fast, skilled, defensibley sound, versatile forward right about now, aka DJ Z-BAD. But I guess we're still in message sending mode after his supposed poor play and intensity in camp. Even though I think everyone agrees his presence would improve the team, playing 20 minutes a night in the AHL won't do him harm either. Now, if JOB is the next callup we'll know something is really amiss.
Anyway, this is a nice reward for Grant, and hopefully he can get a litlte more ice than he got last season.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
