Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Columnist: Del Zotto has to swallow his pride to play

Buffalo Sabres v Nashville Predators

NASHVILLE, TN - MARCH 27: Michael Del Zotto #5 of the Nashville Predators skates against the Buffalo Sabres at Bridgestone Arena on March 27, 2014 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Frederick Breedon/Getty Images)

Getty Images

It hasn’t been a banner year for Michael Del Zotto and the summer isn’t making things any better for him.

After he fell out of favor with Alain Vigneault in New York, after rough times with John Tortorella there, he was dealt to Nashville for Kevin Klein. Things got worse with the Predators as he wound up being a healthy scratch, GM David Poile admitted he didn’t fit in there and wasn’t given a qualifying offer, thus making him a free agent.

Now we’re six days into free agency and there’s not a sniff at the 24-year-old. Larry Brooks of the New York Post says the problem here is with the player and it may be time for him to start taking the hint.

This can’t be about the dotted line for Del Zotto — not now. For the bottom line is that at the age of 24, Del Zotto is a reclamation project. It is impossible to believe there aren’t needy teams out there that wouldn’t take a flier on him, but at their price, not his; their terms, not his.

This is a summer in which Del Zotto should spend his time surrounded by, and looking at, mirrors. The alarm has sounded.


Del Zotto once put up solid numbers, as recently as 2011-12, but it’s been a trial for him more often than not. If the problem is with him, he’s got a great opportunity to make something of himself as long as he’s willing to go for it.

Follow @JoeYerdonPHT