Former Senator Parker Kelly has become much more than the Senators (or anyone else) ever expected.
Two years ago, the Ottawa Senators chose not to extend a qualifying offer to Parker Kelly, and at the time, almost no one thought twice about it.
It was a move that came and went fairly quietly. The focus was elsewhere, on a roster overhaul that brought in several new players that summer, including Linus Ullmark, Nick Jensen, and David Perron.
Kelly was a well-liked teammate, a high-character player, and a reliable fourth-line grinder, but after 177 games in Ottawa, even though he was still just 25, nothing in his profile suggested he was about to become anything more.
With Steve Staios entering his first summer as GM, there was a clear mandate to reshape the Senators’ bottom six. The priority was experience, predictability, and players who could chip in a little more offensively.
Kelly, fairly or not, didn’t project to be that player, and the team needed to make room for players that did.
That led to the 2024 summer additions of veteran forwards like David Perron, Nick Cousins, Michael Amadio, Adam Gaudette, and Noah Gregor. At the time, it all made sense.
But fast forward two years, and the script looks quite different from what anyone expected.
Kelly is about to cap off a breakout season with the Colorado Avalanche. He scored his 20th goal of the season Sunday in a 3-2 loss to the St. Louis Blues, already more than he managed in his entire two-and-a-half seasons with Ottawa.
He’s now up to 34 points in 76 games, blowing past his previous career high of 19. Over his last seven games, he’s been one of the hottest players in Colorado’s lineup, producing five goals and three assists.
Meanwhile, he's still doing all those Parker Kelly things that Ottawa fans remember: 173 hits, 55 blocked shots, and a willingness to do the high-energy grunt work. But now it also comes with a plus-17 rating and a finishing touch that simply wasn’t there before.
If anyone in the hockey world had seen this coming, the Senators might have handled things differently, either by keeping him or getting something in return.
But no one did. Kelly looked like a replaceable fourth-liner, and the Senators had a clear plan.
Ironically, in trying to make room for all those reliable, hard-working 2024 signings, they let Parker Kelly walk, and he's now become exactly what they were looking for that summer.
Steve Warne
The Hockey News
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