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June 03, 2012

67's Bid Official Farewell to Zanetti, Foglia; Acquire Wilson from Brampton

Fans of the Ottawa 67's had a lot of news to digest on the first day of June, from a one-for-one player trade, to a deal that saw us swapping draft picks, to learning the next stage in the career of this past year's Captain.


Just after noon, Marc-Anthony Zanetti took to Twitter to announce that he has signed with the Düsseldorf EG Metro Stars of the DEL, Germany's top tier Hockey League. In another post on his account, he added "I am very excited about this opportunity and look forward to starting my pro career over seas. Thank you to everyone for the support."

Later in the afternoon, General Manager Chris Byrne got to work on what will surely be an interesting off-season. He started by sending forward and Brampton native Nicholas Foglia to his home town Battalion. In 162 career games with the 67's, Foglia registered 15 goals, 17 assists and 77 penalty minutes, although his greatest contribution undoubtedly came when the team was shorthanded, as he established himself as arguably the team's top penalty killer.

In exchange, the 67's acquire goaltender Keegan Wilson, who will take up one of Ottawa's overage spots next season. In Brampton, Wilson put up a 12-9-6 record with a 2.82 goals against average, which included a perfect 4-0 record against the 67's. Wilson kept his goals against average under 2.00 against Ottawa in his first OHL season.

Before the OHL offices closed for the weekend, Ottawa made a second deal, acquiring the 54th overall pick in the upcoming CHL Import Draft from the Kitchener Rangers. In turn, the 67's give up their 8th round pick in the 2013 OHL Draft.

Due to the number of players that the 67's have eligible for overage status next season, we have to believe that more deals will be made throughout the rest of the off-season. The OHL offices re-open on Monday morning, which is when the 67's can officially start dealing once again.

From us at the Fan Blog, we'd like to thank Marc-Anthony Zanetti, Nicholas Foglia, and any other 67's who head in other directions this summer. Your contributions will be missed, but we hope for the best in your future endeavors. With that being said, we'd also like to welcome Keegan Wilson to the Nation's Capital.

NOTE: The 67's also announced that they will kick off the pre-season with a pair of games against their old interprovincial rival Gatineau Olympiques. The games will take place on September 7th and 8th in Rockland and Smiths Falls respectively.

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