Lacosta signs with pro team in Wales
A third hockey player from Newfoundland and Labrador has signed on with the Devils, but goaltender Dan LaCosta won’t be joining Ryane Clowe and Michael Ryder in New Jersey.
In the case of Labrador City’s LaCosta, it’s the the Cardiff Devils of the Elite Ice Hockey League, the top professional circuit in Great Britain.
LaCosta, 27, is coming off a season that saw him help lead the University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds to a Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) men’s hockey championship, but when he joins his new team in Wales it won’t represent his first taste of pro hockey. Far from it. A 2004 third-round draft pick of the Columbus Blue Jackets, LCosta followed up a four-year junior career in the OHL with four more seasons in the Blue Jackets system, playing mostly in the American Hockey League with the Syracuse Crunch, but also getting into four NHL games with Columbus.
After a year away from the game so as to regain his eligibility to play in the Canadian collegiate ranks, LaCosta joined the Varsity Reds in 2011.
In all, he spent three years at UNB, including his hockey sabbatical.
Last season, he posted a nearperfect 15-1 record, with a sparkling 1.92 goals-against average.