{"id":205849,"date":"2025-09-06T20:28:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T20:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/205849\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T20:28:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T20:28:14","slug":"two-teams-remain-in-the-running-to-sign-evgeny-kuznetsov","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/205849\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Teams Remain In The Running To Sign Evgeny Kuznetsov"},"content":{"rendered":"

After making his intention<\/a> to return to North America known, it was expected that free agent center Evgeny Kuznetsov<\/a><\/strong> would be snapped up relatively quickly in a UFA market that wasn\u2019t exactly deep this summer.\u00a0 But instead, his market has been slow-played as he remains unsigned.<\/p>\n

However, it appears that he may not be without a contract for much longer.\u00a0 His agent Shumi Babaev told Sports Daily\u2019s Mikhail Nyukhin<\/a> that his client has now identified two NHL teams that he\u2019ll sign with; he didn\u2019t specify who they were, however.\u00a0 Both of those teams are now in the process of trying to open up salary cap space to sign Kuznetsov.\u00a0 When asked about him signing a minimum-salary contract worth $775K, Babaev indicated that there have been no talks about that.<\/p>\n

Last summer, the 33-year-old signed a four-year deal with SKA St. Petersburg of the KHL which strongly suggested that his days of playing in the NHL had come to an end.\u00a0 But after a solid season that saw him record 12 goals and 25 assists in 39 games, the final three seasons of the agreement were terminated back in April but instead of looking for another team in Russia to sign with, he set his sights on returning to North America.<\/p>\n

Kuznetsov last played in the NHL in 2023-24, starting that year with Washington, the only NHL team he had known after they drafted him in the first round in 2010.\u00a0 However, he re-entered the Player Assistance Program in February of that season and upon being cleared to return, the Capitals subsequently waived him.\u00a0 After he cleared (an unsurprising outcome given his $7.8MM cap charge), he was dealt with 50% retention to Carolina for a third-round pick.<\/p>\n

Kuznetsov went on to pick up seven points in 20 games with the Hurricanes before tallying six more in 10 playoff outings, looking as if he could be a useful secondary contributor for them.\u00a0 \u00a0However, he requested and was granted the termination of the final year of that contract to allow him to return to Russia; one year later, the opposite has happened.<\/p>\n

In his prime, Kuznetsov was a legitimate number one center, allowing him to amass 173 goals and 402 assists in 743 games at the top level.\u00a0 But toward the end of that time, his production was starting to slow down and it\u2019s fair to question how much of an impact he\u2019ll have on a lineup now.\u00a0 However, it appears that there was enough of a market for him to be at least a little selective on where he\u2019ll play at a salary higher than the minimum.\u00a0 It looks as if we\u2019ll know somewhat soon where Kuznetsov will be suiting up in 2025-26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After making his intention to return to North America known, it was expected that free agent center Evgeny…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":205850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[4245,44098,293,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-205849","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-2025-free-agency","9":"tag-evgeny-kuznetsov","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115159243682230736","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}