{"id":23946,"date":"2025-06-29T07:40:08","date_gmt":"2025-06-29T07:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/23946\/"},"modified":"2025-06-29T07:40:08","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T07:40:08","slug":"canucks-acquire-rights-to-ilya-safonov-from-blackhawks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/23946\/","title":{"rendered":"Canucks Acquire Rights To Ilya Safonov From Blackhawks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Canucks announced Saturday they\u2019ve <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/canucks\/news\/canucks-acquire-ilya-safonov-from-chicago\" rel=\"noopener\">acquired<\/a> the signing rights to forward\u00a0<strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eliteprospects.com\/player\/512834\/ilya-safonov\" rel=\"noopener\">Ilya Safonov<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>from the Blackhawks in exchange for future considerations. Vancouver will now presumably try to get the Russian center, who\u2019s been on Chicago\u2019s reserve list since they drafted him in the sixth round in 2021, signed to an NHL contract.<\/p>\n<p>The 24-year-old was a sixth-round pick by Chicago back in 2021, going 172nd overall.\u00a0 At the time, Safonov had a minor role with Kazan in the KHL but in 2022-23, he had a breakout 37-point performance that suggested he could bring more to the table while also sparking hopes that he might come to North America.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately for Chicago, Safonov\u2019s production has gone in the wrong direction since then.\u00a0 He managed 20 points in 67 games in 2023-24 and while his point total (22) was marginally better this season, his seven goals were the lowest he had in a single season since being drafted.\u00a0 In the meantime, he signed a one-year contract extension with Kazan last month, keeping him signed in Russia through the end of next season.\u00a0 Unlike contracts in some other countries, his deal does not have an NHL out clause.<\/p>\n<p>With this in mind, it feels like this is a longer-term no-risk move for the Canucks.\u00a0 If Safonov is able to rebound offensively next season, he could play his way into consideration for being signed and given a chance to crack Vancouver\u2019s lineup.\u00a0 Meanwhile, if that doesn\u2019t happen or Safonov decides he just wants to keep playing at home, it\u2019s not as if they\u2019ve given up anything to get his rights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Canucks announced Saturday they\u2019ve acquired the signing rights to forward\u00a0Ilya Safonov\u00a0from the Blackhawks in exchange for future&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[291,21618,21619,293,62,1650,67,132,68,3114],"class_list":{"0":"post-23946","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-chicago-blackhawks","9":"tag-ilya-safonov","10":"tag-khl","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-transactions","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-vancouver-canucks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114765524120770622","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23946","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=23946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}