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'I feel I can still play': Neil driven to find second NHL home

Chris Neil was driving around Ottawa on Thursday with his wife Caitlin and a to-do list “about 30” errands long when I called and asked where he was headed.

“I don’t know yet,” the Senators all-time tough guy said with a laugh.

Neil is not sure where he’s going, if anywhere at all, after he becomes a free agent July 1, either. But in a meeting Tuesday with GM Pierre Dorion and assistant GM Randy Lee, it was decided his 16-year run as a Senator was over.

There was talk about him returning in a role similar to the one he had this season, when coach Guy Boucher played him in just 53 games and two in the playoffs.