{"id":844568,"date":"2026-08-05T15:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T15:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/844568\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T15:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T15:52:10","slug":"simon-despres-returns-to-north-america-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/844568\/","title":{"rendered":"Simon Despres Returns To North America \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

After spending the better part of the last decade overseas, veteran defenseman Simon Despres<\/a> isn\u2019t ready to hang up his skates just yet. According to a team announcement<\/a>, Despres has agreed to a one-year contract with the ECHL\u2019s Fort Wayne Komets for the 2026-27 season.<\/p>\n

Despres, 35, was originally selected with the 30th overall pick of the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 2009 NHL Draft. He spent a few more years with the QMJHL\u2019s Saint John Sea Dogs before joining the professional ranks for the 2011-12 season.<\/p>\n

Throughout his four-year tenure with the Penguins, Despres largely split his time between the NHL and the AHL. In 144 games with the Penguins, Despres scored five goals and 33 points with a +27 rating, averaging 15:54 of ice time per game. After getting off to a good start in the 2014-15 season, Pittsburgh traded Despres to the Anaheim Ducks for defenseman Ben Lovejoy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At the time, the Ducks believed that Despres would become a formidable part of their defensive corps for the foreseeable future. Shortly before the start of the 2015-16 season, Anaheim signed Despres to a five-year, $18.5MM extension. Unfortunately, injuries took their toll on Despres relatively quickly, and the Ducks bought out the remaining three years of his contract after the 2016-17 season. Despres was only paid $5.3MM until the 2024-25 season instead of the $15.9MM he would have been owed until 2020-21, due to the buyout.<\/p>\n

Outside of a brief comeback attempt with the Montreal Canadiens in the 2018-19 season, it\u2019s been all overseas hockey for Despres. He\u2019s jumped from country to country, playing in Slovakia, Germany, Sweden, Latvia, Switzerland, England, and Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After spending the better part of the last decade overseas, veteran defenseman Simon Despres isn\u2019t ready to hang…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":844569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,28896,575,416465,85,206],"class_list":["post-844568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-echl","tag-nhl","tag-simon-despres","tag-sports","tag-transactions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}