Andrej Meszároš

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Position	Defence
Shoots	Left
Nickname	Mez
Height Weight	6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) 208 lb (95 kg)
NHL Team	Ottawa Senators
Nationality	Slovakia
Born	October 13, 1985, Považská Bystrica, CS
NHL Draft	23rd Overall, 2004 Ottawa Senators
Pro Career	2005 – present

Andrej Meszároš, #14 (born October 13, 1985 in Považská Bystrica, Czechoslovakia) is a Slovak ice hockey defenceman currently with the Ottawa Senators of the NHL.

Andrej Meszároš was the Senators first draft pick in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft and 23rd pick overall. He is playing in his second season in the NHL (2006-07). Before joining the Senators, he played for the Vancouver Giants in the WHL and Dukla Trenčín in the Slovak Extraliga. He also played with the Slovak national ice hockey team in the 2004 Men's World Ice Hockey Championships and in the 2006 Winter Olympics. Meszároš was the second youngest player at the Men’s tournament in the Torino Olympics. Only Russia’s Evgeni Malkin was younger.

Meszároš is known primarily for being a strong positional defencemen with great ability to move the puck up the ice. Considered to have been the second best rookie defencemen in his first season and named to the NHL All-Rookie Team with Dion Phaneuf, his sophmore season (thus far) has been disappointing to fans. More difficult match-ups and a 4 minutes per game increase in average playing time compared to his rookie year, saw his plus/minus rating drop from the among the league leaders, to the among the league's worst. Injuries to Wade Redden and the loss of Zdeno Chara to Boston lead, perhaps prematurely, to an increased role for the young defencemen who was 2nd on Sens in minutes played and was 3rd on the team in minutes per game[1].

1 Career highlights
2 Career statistics
3 International play
4 External links

[edit] Career highlights

Scored first NHL assist October 10th, 2005 in a 6-5 shootout win over the Toronto Maple Leafs

Scored first NHL goal December 9th, 2005 against the Vancouver Canucks at 5:01 in the 3rd period to tie the game (which would be won by Vancouver in an overtime shootout)

As a 20 year old NHL rookie was named to Team Slovakia for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin.

Led the NHL in plus-minus rating for most of his rookie year (2005/6), and finished tied for third in that category with Jaromir Jagr at +34

Scored 39 points, second only to Dion Phaneuf among first-year defencemen and made the NHL All-Rookie Team

Selected to play in the NHL YoungStars Game held during the 2007 all-star week in Dallas along with teammate Patrick Eaves, and scored 2 goals in a 9-8 win