OHL Alumni Central

Dan LaCosta played between the pipes in the Ontario Hockey League for four seasons, from 2002-03 to 2005-06. He started his OHL career with the Owen Sound Attack and moved to the Barrie Colts midway through the 2004-05 season. He played in the net for 59 games for the Colts in his final season in the Ontario Hockey League.

In that final season with the Barrie Colts, LaCosta was second, only to Dan Turple of the Kitchener Rangers, amongst Ontario Hockey League goalies in wins and goals against average. The Colts lost out in the Eastern Conference finals to the eventual Robertson Cup winning Peterborough Petes.

LaCosta was taken by the Columbus Blue Jackets in the third round, 93rd overall, in the 2004 NHL draft. Dan appeared in four games with the Blue Jackets, one in 2007-08 and three in 2008-09. In 2007-08, he appeared in relief playing 13 minutes of shutout hockey while making five saves. In 2008-09, LaCosta had his only NHL shutout while maintaining a 1.54 GAA and a .950 save percentage over the three games.

The rest of LaCosta’s professional career has been mostly played with the American Hockey League’s Syracuse Crunch, the affiliate of the Columbus Blue Jackets. He has also appeared with the Dayton Bombers and the Elmira Jackals of the East Coast Hockey League.

LaCosta has taken a new direction for the upcoming season and has signed on with EC Salzburg Red Bulls of Austria’s Erste Bank Eishockey Liga. After a somewhat disappointing season with Syracuse during the 2009-10 season when Dan had a 3.96 GAA and a save percentage of .882, LaCosta is looking to turn things around in Europe.

Check out Dan LaCosta’s profile page on the EC Salzburg Red Bulls official website by following this link and clicking on Dan’s name on the right hand column.

Dan Lacosta appears in this previous post listing the Barrie Colts alumni still active in professional hockey during the 2009-10 seeason.

Despite the fact that many Russians have played in the OHL in recent years, there is only one OHL grad that will play on Team Russia at the Olympic Games in Vancouver.

Fedor Tyutin was a member of the Guelph Storm for the 2001-02 season. That season, he had 19 goals and 40 assists for 59 points in 53 games. He was drafted 40th overall by the New York Rangers and went on to play 4 seasons for the team before moving on to Columbus in 2008-09, where he remains today.

Check out these other posts of OHL grads going to the Olympics:

Latvia, Norway, Germany, Czech Republic, United States and Canada.