With a Stanley Cup ring in his luggage, Amadio says he's returning to Ottawa as a more mature player who's grown in his game.
In the second half of the 2020-21 NHL season, about halfway through his rebuild, Ottawa Senators Pierre Dorion decided to clean house. Dorion cut bait on several of his prospects and signings who weren't working out.
Between January and March of that season, Dorion traded away five veteran players he had recently acquired: Cedric Paquette (9 games as a Senator), Alex Galchenyuk (8 games), Braydon Coburn (16 games), Mike Reilly (70 games), and Erik Gudbranson (36 games). He also threw in the towel on three young defencemen he drafted: Max Lajoie (AHL), Christian Jaros (KHL), and Christian Wolanin (AHL).
There isn't much to show from any of those deals.
But the Sens did pick up forward Michael Amadio in the Wolanin deal. At the time of the deal, Amadio was ready to pop. He was just two years away from being a huge contributor to a Stanley Cup champion, scoring 10 points in 16 games.
Not with the Senators, of course. They let him walk after five games that season and Amadio won the Cup with the Vegas Golden Knights in 2023.
With GM Steve Staios now running things in Ottawa, the Sens didn't feel remotely sheepish about circling back on Amadio, signing him to a three-year contract last week.
Along with winger David Perron, who signed on the same day, Amadio provides Ottawa with valuable, been-there-done-that-winning experience, and both players fairly recently saw their names engraved on the Stanley Cup.
Amadio is a former 50-goal scorer in the OHL, playing four seasons with the Brampton/North Bay Battalion, three of them with former Senator Nick Paul.
In Vegas, he scored 41 goals and 72 points in 193 games, playing mostly in the Golden Knights' bottom six. He's a Swiss army knife, though. He's a fine two-way guy, and in a pinch, he won't hurt you in the top six.
Amadio says he's happy to play any forward position, although he claims to have a slight preference now for the right wing. But the Sens are pretty much set at centre and right wing. In all likelihood, he'll begin the season on his off-wing and also keep second-line left winger Ridly Greig on his toes.
So, how has Amadio changed since the Sens turned him loose three years ago?
"I think just playing all those games since the last time I was in Ottawa helped me mature as a player and grow my game," Amadio told TSN 1200 radio. "But I think I can play on both sides of the puck. And I would always like to be consistent and bring in the same game night in, night out."
Consistency seems to be the rallying cry of this team for the coming season, even among new players. Linus Ullmark spoke at length about consistency as well.
Ullmark also said he's intrigued by Ottawa as a place to raise a young family, and Amadio probably related to that as well. He and his wife became first-time parents in December to a little girl named Scottie. Amadio also has an affable older cousin in Stonebridge who fancies himself as the neighbourhood social convenor.
The last time Amadio set down roots for three years somewhere, things panned out pretty well. Sens fans would love to see history repeat itself.
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