OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Shane Pinto is convinced the experience will help him down the road. It just didn’t feel that way in the moment.

Already sidelined due to a contract impasse that saw him miss the start of last season, the Ottawa Senators forward from New York's Long Island was suspended for 41 games for “activities relating to sports wagering” by the NHL last October.

Pinto took the punishment and returned to have a strong second half of the campaign, but watching from afar as teammates with big expectations struggled to start the schedule — coach D.J. Smith was fired in December amid the tailspin — didn’t sit well.

“I had to mature a lot,” Pinto told The Canadian Press. “It has been a blessing in disguise, in a sense. It taught me a lot about how much I love the game and how much I miss it, and how much of a part of my life it is.”

He believes the suspension built character and taught him a lot.

“Taught me not to take things for granted. It can be taken away from me pretty quickly,” he said. “It was definitely a hidden blessing, and it made my life better.”

The 23-year-old Pinto declined to get into what exactly led to the punishment handed down by Commissioner Gary Bettman though he told the “Empty Netters” podcast his mistake was having friends in the U.S. place online wagers for him while he was in Canada. He said one of the league’s industry partners flagged his account, which led to an investigation.

“That’s proxy betting, so that’s obviously a big no-no,” Pinto said on the podcast in July. “It was, like, an illegal act, so obviously it was a pretty big deal. That’s why we didn’t want to fight (the ban) and we just kind of accepted it.”

The NHL said Pinto didn’t bet on NHL games. He told the Canadian Press he wasn’t aware he was doing anything wrong.

“I just didn’t know any better,” he said.

The Senators missed the playoffs for a seventh consecutive year, but they will have Pinto back at training camp this week as the group looks to finally make a surge up the standings behind the likes of Brady Tkachuk, Tim Stutzle, Thomas Chabot, Jake Sanderson and Claude Giroux. The new coach is Travis Green and the team acquired goaltender Linus Ullmark — the Vezina Trophy winner in 2023 — from Boston in June.

“There’s been a lot of distractions,” Pinto said. “Now we’re steady. We have stability. We brought in the right pieces … I think it’s going to be a good year, finally. Hopefully we take the next step.”

Pinto signed a two-year, $7.5 million extension in July. Limited by injuries early in his career, Pinto had 20 goals and 35 points in 82 games in 2022-23. After he returned from the suspension in January, he put up 27 points (nine goals, 18 assists) in 41 games.

“There’s enough excuses,” Pinto said. “The fans are sick of it like we are. It’s time for us to become men this year … there’s enough talking about it.”

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