Two years ago, around this time, the Boston Bruins still had Ryan Spooner on their roster. And he wasn’t just a random type of player, of course. In that 2017-18 season, Spooner played in 39 games with the Bruins collecting 25 points. Spooner spent 253 games in the Bruins uniform.
However, ahead of the Trade Deadline in February 2018, the Bruins included him in a trade which sent Rick Nash to Boston. As a New York Ranger, Spooner finished the season with 16 points in 20 games. A solid outing.
In the summer, Spooner signed a two-year contract extension with the Rangers. Nevertheless, in the next approximately 15 months, his career took an unexpected turn. Struggling mightily in New York with two points in 16 games, the Rangers traded him to Edmonton. Spooner was struggling there as well.
The Oilers even waived him before trading him to Vancouver. Spooner attempted to revive his career with the Canucks, but he was unsuccessful, yet again. In the past June, the Canucks bought him out.
Successively, Spooner signed with HC Lugano from the Swiss League. There in Switzerland, the 27-year-old forward skated in only two games at the beginning of the season. He has been a healthy scratch since then.
On Monday, HC Lugano announced that Spooner’s contract is terminated on a mutual agreement with the player. Spooner signed his new contract with the Dinamo Minsk from the KHL. He will find some former NHL-ers here like Drew Shore, Teemu Pulkkinen, or Shane Prince, but that is not the dreamy sequence of the career for Spooner, the former second-round draft choice by Boston.
To change six different teams in a time of the past 20 months is extraordinarily strange. Undoubtedly, it seems like leaving Boston was the worst possible option for Spooner. However, the Bruins needed to shed some salary-cap space to acquire Nash in February 2018. All the things came together in a really unfortunate way for Spooner.
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