Ottawa Senators fans, feel free to exhale. Your captain will be back in uniform next season.
Forty-year-old Daniel Alfredsson has decided to continue his NHL career and play in the 2013-14 season, as first reported by Swedish sports journalist Marie Lehmann:
Alfredsson was expected to make his decision Friday after taking a few weeks to contemplate his future following the Senators’ second-round playoff exit to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
“I think that he knows and everybody knows that it’s quite obvious that he can easily play another year — if not four or five years,” teammate Kyle Turris told Sportsnet’s Ian Mendes last month. “That’s going to be his decision and we’re just praying he comes back.”
The Sens captain returned to Sweden with his family after the 2012-13 NHL season but met with general manager Bryan Murray prior to leaving and said he would likely give him an answer by draft day.
An unrestricted free agent, Alfredsson had been contemplating retirement or returning for another season. His four-year, $19.5-million deal expired at the end of the 2012-13 season.
“I have a feeling he wants to play,” Murray told the Canadian Press Tuesday. “That was certainly something he wanted to look at again further and whether that will be the final answer or not I don’t know at this point.”
If he and Alfredsson do agree on a new deal, Murray can’t officially re-sign him until the free agency window opens July 5. Murray says he expects it would only be a one-year contract.
“He felt good when he talked to me,” said Murray. “He said he felt healthy. He hadn’t worked out much, but wanted to do that starting this week and I think that’s all he was waiting for was to feel good about another summer of working hard and getting ready for a hockey season.”
Murray said having Alfredsson “is better than most free agents we could get.”
(with files from CP)
