After spending the 2015-16 season playing in Sweden and Switzerland, Maxim Lapierre was in New York Rangers training camp this year on a professional tryout contract.
On Wednesday, he was one of the roster cuts as the team begins to assemble its roster for the start of the 2016-17 season when he was released from his PTO.
Lapierre, now 31, last played in the NHL during the 2014-15 season when he split the campaign between St. Louis and Pittsburgh, scoring two goals to go with nine assists in 80 games.
It probably shouldn’t be much of a surprise that Lapierre didn’t make the Rangers roster. While their defense is littered with question marks, they have a pretty deep group of forwards that they strengthened over the summer with the signings of Michael Grabner, Brandon Pirri, Nathan Gerbe, and Jimmy Vesey. There is also rookie forward Pavel Buchnevich that figures to play a prominent role this season, as well as the addition of Mika Zibanejad from from the Ottawa Senators. Adding those guys to a lineup that already has Rick Nash, Derek Stepan, Mats Zuccarello and Chris Kreider and you have the makings of a pretty formidable group of forwards that was going to be tough to get into.
Even though Lapierre is a bit of a pest and brings the toughness and grit that some teams still value on their fourth line, there were simply more players ahead of him that can bring more to the team.