{"id":26383,"date":"2025-07-21T15:21:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T15:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/26383\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T15:21:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T15:21:08","slug":"international-notes-brennan-cerny-dello","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/26383\/","title":{"rendered":"International Notes: Brennan, Cerny, Dello"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former NHL defenseman\u00a0T.J. Brennan<\/a>\u00a0has played in Europe ever since the pandemic hit in 2020. While he\u2019s spent most of that time in Switzerland, he\u2019s now making the jump to HK Olimpija Ljubljana, the lone Slovenian club in Austria\u2019s ICEHL, the team announced<\/a> on Facebook.<\/p>\n

Brennan, 36, was the first pick of the second round in the 2007 draft by the Sabres. While he\u2019s long been a high-end point producer from the blue line at the minor league and European levels, his all-around game never translated into a full-time NHL career. He only made 53 big-league appearances with the Sabres, Panthers, and Maple Leafs between the 2011-12 and 2016-17 campaigns, scoring 13 points with a -22 rating.<\/p>\n

The New Jersey native has spent the last three seasons with Switzerland\u2019s HC Ajoie in the National League, the country\u2019s top flight. The team isn\u2019t very good, fighting to stay in the league in a relegation series in two of the last three years, but Brennan still managed 63 points in 109 games for the club.<\/p>\n

He now returns to the ICEHL, still among Europe\u2019s better leagues, where he spent the 2021-22 season with EC Salzburg. He was named a league All-Star and won a title with Salzburg, leading the league in scoring by a defenseman with 47 points in 48 games. While he\u2019s now four years older, he\u2019ll look to recapture some of that success with his new Slovenian side.<\/p>\n

A few more recent international signings of note:<\/p>\n

After going undrafted this year, 2007-born defenseman\u00a0Stepan Cerny<\/a>\u00a0is continuing his development in North America after his European team, Czechia\u2019s Mountfield HK, announced<\/a> he\u2019s departing the club to join the USHL\u2019s Fargo Force. Cerny won a silver medal with Czechia\u2019s under-18 squad at last year\u2019s Hlinka Gretzky Cup and put up great numbers with Mountfield\u2019s under-20 club, putting up a 6-27\u201333 scoring line in 36 regular-season games. However, the lefty clocks in at just 5\u20199\u2033 and 139 lbs, making it hard to imagine him as anything more than a late-round pick. He\u2019ll look to grow both physically and in his on-ice progression with Fargo in hopes of being selected in 2026 as an overage pick. He was selected No. 13 overall in the 2024 CHL Import Draft by the QMJHL\u2019s Gatineau Olympiques, but he opted to remain at home for his draft year.
\nThere\u2019s more news out of Czechia: longtime AHL defenseman Tory Dello<\/a> has joined Extraliga club HC Energie Karlovy Vary, the club announced<\/a> over the weekend. Dello, 28, was a two-time Big 10 champion with Notre Dame and has recorded a 13-43\u201356 scoring line with 134 PIMs and a +37 rating in 229 AHL games since turning pro in 2020. He spent last season on a two-way deal with the Red Wings and was traded to the Devils in the league\u2019s lone post-deadline trade<\/a>, posting eight points in 39 games split between Detroit\u2019s and New Jersey\u2019s affiliates in Grand Rapids and Utica.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former NHL defenseman\u00a0T.J. Brennan\u00a0has played in Europe ever since the pandemic hit in 2020. While he\u2019s spent most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[23066,23067,385,99,23063,23064,23065,6182,23068],"class_list":["post-26383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-czech-extraliga","tag-icehl","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-stepan-cerny","tag-t-j-brennan","tag-tory-dello","tag-transactions","tag-ushl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}