According to Sean O’Leary of The Score on Sunday, the Ottawa Senators have signed centre Nick Cousins of Belleville, Ontario to a one year deal worth $800,000. The Senators are the seventh National Hockey League team Cousins has played for. He was previously with the Philadelphia Flyers from 2014 to 2017, the Arizona Coyotes from 2017 to 2019, the Montreal Canadiens from 2019 to 2020, the Vegas Golden Knights in 2020, and the Nashville Predators from 2020 to 2022, and the Florida Panthers from 2022 to 2024.
This past season in Florida, Cousins had seven goals and eight assists for 15 points in 69 games. He was a +1 with 64 penalty minutes, three game winning goals, 111 shots on goal, 17 faceoff wins, 33 blocked shots, 130 hits, 31 takeaways and 23 giveaways.
Cousins’s 130 hits were a career high. To put into perspective at how much the Panthers were physical this past season, Cousins’s 130 hits were only sixth on the entire Panthers team.
Most significantly this past season, Cousins won a Stanley Cup in Florida. In a dozen postseason games, Cousins had one assist for one point. The playoff assist came in game three of the first round, a 5-3 Panthers win over the Tampa Bay Lightning. Cousins helped set up Steven Lorentz of Kitchener, Ontario for the game-winning goal at 9:41 of the third period.
