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Departures: Robidas leaves Finnish team, Stewart exits Germany

Robidas

Two more locked-out NHLers parted ways with their European clubs on Wednesday.

The first was Dallas Stars defenseman Stephane Robidas, who opted not to extend his contract with Finnish team HIFK Helsinki.

Robidas, 35, signed with the SM-liiga club back in early October, joining fellow locked-out NHLers Lennart Petrett and Sean Bergenheim.

He appeared in 15 games for HIFK and recorded 2G-3A-5PTS, racking up 22 penalty minutes and a ghastly minus-11 rating (though possibly not all his doing -- Helsinki sits a disappointing 10th in the 14-team league.)

The second player to return home was St. Louis Blues forward Chris Stewart, who left German second division club Crimmitschau.

According to a hasty Google translate of the Crimmitschau press release, Stewart returned to Canada because he was one of the players that “received from their managers to call for a return to North America and to prepare for an early start to the season may soon.”

So yeah.

The departure marks an end to Stewart’s wild European adventure -- he first signed in Germany (along with Wayne Simmonds) in late September, then jumped ship (again, with Simmonds) in October to sign with Liberec of the Czech Extraliga.

In November, Stewart abruptly left the Czech Republic for a reunion with Crimmitschau, not long after the ugly racial chants incident involving Simmonds and fans of Extraliga club Chomutov.