Former first-round pick looking to return to NHL after year overseas

Veteran NHL winger Tyler Ennis is open to a return to North America after spending last season playing in Switzerland and could receive a professional tryout contract from a Western Conference team, Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal reports.

After 13 NHL seasons and exactly 700 regular-season games, Ennis headed overseas full-time for the first time last season, signing a one-year contract with National League club SC Bern. He had played in the Swiss top level once before — he skated in nine games for the SCL Tigers during the 2012 lockout.

There, he showed he still had what it takes to produce at an elite level, albeit in a weaker league. He finished the season with 13 goals and 20 assists for 33 points in 37 games. That was after somewhat of a bounceback season with the Ottawa Senators in 2021-22, recording 24 points in 57 games (a 35-point pace). His strong season in Switzerland suggests he could replicate that in a bottom-six role should he return to the NHL this season.

Drafted 26th overall in 2008, it’s been an up-and-down career for the diminutive winger, who struggled with injuries during his prime and never quite reached the potential he hinted at after posting multiple 20-goal campaigns with the Buffalo Sabres early on in his career. He’d been a capable depth contributor in the past few seasons, though, bouncing around between Canadian teams in Ottawa, Edmonton and Toronto after getting bought out by the Minnesota Wild in 2018.

Now 33 years old, Ennis likely has a few good years of hockey left in him and evidently hopes to spend them back in the NHL. However, if no PTO materializes, Matheson reports Ennis still has “irons in the fire” in Switzerland and could easily find a deal again in the NL in 2023-24.