Reports of players leaving the NHL and going to the KHL have always been a bit premature as most just use it as leverage to sign a better deal somewhere in North America. Valeri Nichushkin is a Russian born forward who was without a contract and as the season draws closer, the threat of him joining a team over in Russia is looking like a real possibility.
[link_box id=”22277″ site_id=”17″ layout=”link-box-third” alignment=”alignright”]Now, the Dallas Starts worst nightmare may have come true.
According to @galkevich32 Valeri Nichushkin is set to sign 2-year deal with #CSKA of the #KHL. CSKA has just acquired rights for him #Stars
— Igor Eronko (@IgorEronko) September 19, 2016
The report from Igor Eronko was ominous at best and seemed like a typical strategy of an agent trying to leverage a player. When Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet came back with a similar report, Stars fans were scrambling for answers.
https://twitter.com/FriedgeHNIC/status/777966083731062784
Nichushkin has always been a player that tantalizes with his potential but in actual output, the Stars aren’t missing out on too much. In just over 160 games, he only has 64 points. That’s not a great number for a player in a contract stalemate. The Stars could easily fill his role with any number of veteran free agent forwards. The real problem in this contract dispute may not even be the numbers on a contract but the person behind the bench.
Per source Nichushkin doesn't want to play for Lindy Ruff. Although he wants to return to #Stars someday.Ruff's contract is for 2 more years
— Igor Eronko (@IgorEronko) September 19, 2016
The demotion from one of the top lines to one in the bottom six probably hurt Nichushkin’s ego a bit. Ruff won’t be going anywhere, anytime soon. Nichushkin needs to start getting used to his new teammates because this situation doesn’t look like it will be resolved in short order.
