Dallas Stars Should Use Recent Russian Deals To Grab Valeri Nichushkin
By Tom Dorsa
Under a free agent market that is rewarding Russian KHLers, Valeri Nichushkin will not get a better time to return to the Dallas Stars. He needs to act fast, though.
On Friday, May 5th, the Vegas Golden Knights made just their second free agent signing since becoming the 31st franchise in the National Hockey League.
The Knights, led by general manager George McPhee, snagged prolific Russian forward Vadim Shipachyov from St. Petersberg SKA of the Kontinental Hockey League. McPhee inked a two-year deal with Shipachyov, including an average annual value of $4.5 million.
Shipachyov joined Reid Duke, a center from the Western Hockey League, as the only players on contract with Nevada’s first professional sports team. However, rumblings of Vegas capturing a teammate of Shipachyov in the KHL emerged over the last weekend.
Evgenii Dadonov, with whom Shipachyov combined to score 146 points for St. Petersberg last season, is reportedly very interested in rejoining the NHL (Dadonov played 55 games with Florida prior to this) to chase a Stanley Cup with Shipachyov.
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Dadonov has not officially agreed to any contract with the 31 teams of North America’s top pro hockey sanctioning body, but the point of this article is the same: with all of the Russian players being shipped over to the United States, what’s to stop the Dallas Stars from bringing Valeri Nichushkin, a high-profile, physical forward from Chelyabinsk, back to Big D?
With two massive names in the KHL moving over to the NHL, Nichushkin, who remains on a contract with the Dallas Stars, should see the added incentive that rejoining the Stars can bring. Surely there are several top-class KHLers hoping that an NHL team calls their number, so Valeri should not take his contract for granted.
The original issues with the 2013 first-round selection came from a lack of deployment by a Lindy Ruff-led Stars coaching staff; Nichushkin failed to see eye to eye with a heavily-disciplinary coach like Ruff. But, with the hiring of former St. Louis Blues coach Ken Hitchcock, that problem is out of the way for Nichushkin.
While Val has had his struggles as a Dallas Star, general manager Jim Nill’s sole method of rationalizing the move of Nichushkin was that the KHL will make the 6’4″ winger a better, more complete player. Statistics of Nichushkin’s shortened KHL season indicate a blossoming of his already stellar skillset.
Nichushkin scored just nine goals, adding 20 assists, in 79 games during the 2015-16 season in which the Dallas Stars were crowned as Central Division champions (0.12 goals per game, 0.25 assists per game, 0.37 points per game). Nichushkin in 2016-17, while playing with the KHL’s CSKA Moscow, tallied 11 goals and 13 assists in 36 games (0.30 GPG, 0.36 APG, 0.66 PPG).
It’s obvious that a player like Nichushkin has some value. While it’ll take one expansion draft spot away for the Stars, something many people are against, there’s all kinds of NHL potential remaining in Nichushkin and given the market right now, there’s a strong chance he’ll consider the Dallas Stars for 2017-18.
Artemi Panarin, Nikita Zaitsev, and Alex Radulov are just three examples of players jumping straight from the KHL to the NHL and succeeding. All three of the athletes can accredit their improvement to extended time in the KHL, and Nichushkin has the potential to be the next in that line of Russians.
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It was living legend and former Dallas Stars winger Jaromir Jagr that once said “Nichushkin has the tools to be the best player in the world.” It’s unfair to use those expectations, but if the Stars can act fast, we’d be getting an All-Star player in Valeri Nichushkin next season.