As I had mentioned in another post, most of the news pertaining to the Senators has come in the form of stories of depth fodder or fourth line talent who are poised to come to training camp to ready to earn their keep or improve their stock. Interestingly, Dmitri Chesnekov, Puck Daddy’s (Yahoo! Sports) Russian correspondent revealed via Twitter that:
#Sens prospect Ilya Zubov, playing in the KHL, said he still wants to try to break into the NHL; may come back next year.
If you will remember, Zubov was a casualty during last fall’s training camp when he showed up reportedly out of shape. Unable to impress brass, he was sent down early on in camp to Binghamton alongside heralded fringe prospects like Geoff Kinrade, Cody Bass, Andy Chiodo, Jeremy Yablonski and Ryan Keller. Zubov, who had played 11 games over two seasons for Ottawa, never seemed to be happy to be back in Binghamton and considering the number of prospects who had jumped him on the organization’s depth chart, the writing was on the wall. After playing in only one game with the Baby Sens in 2009/10, Zubov was given permission to return to Russia where he signed on to play with Ufa Salavat Yulayev where he posted an impressive 3 goals and 3 assists in 26 games before being moved to CSKA Moscow.
Although Ilya has had success at the AHL level (Ed. note: his best season was 63 GP, 14 goals and 53 points), expecting him to ever become anything more than an emergency call up seems a stretch at this point in time.
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