International Notes: Imports, Masin, Gronborg

Typically, the CHL Import Draft is held after the NHL Entry Draft with several NHL teams making attempts to get some of their international draft picks into major junior.  However, while the NHL draft has been delayed, the CHL festivities went ahead as scheduled on Tuesday with the full results here.  A pair of NHL picks from 2019 were taken in Red Wings winger Albin Grewe (Saginaw, OHL) and Jets center Henri Nikkanen (Winnipeg, WHL).

The top pick in the draft was Russian winger Matvei Petrov, who went to OHL North Bay.  The 17-year-old isn’t eligible for the upcoming NHL draft but will use next season to boost his case as his agent Dan Milstein confirmed to Ryan Kennedy of The Hockey News that Petrov will report.  German winger John-Jason Peterka is expected to be a late first-round pick or go early in the second round and he went late in the first round to OHL London.  However, he declined to come over a year ago when Barrie held his rights but whoever drafts Peterka in October will try to convince him to come over this time around.

More international news and notes:

• Lightning defense prospect Dominik Masin is in discussions with Amur Khabarovsk of the KHL, reports Russian site AllHockey.ru. The pending restricted free agent has spent the last four seasons exclusively with AHL Syracuse, posting 16 goals and 42 assists in 269 games.  Masin was a second-round pick back in 2014 and with the fate of the 2020-21 AHL season in question at this time, opting to go overseas would guarantee him a full season worth of development.
• Swedish coach Rikard Gronborg has indicated a desire to coach in the NHL at some point and even had some interest from New Jersey early in their coaching search. However, it will be a few more years before he gets that chance now as Zurich of the Swiss NLA announced that they’ve signed Gronborg to an early two-year contract extension that runs through the 2022-23 season.  The deal only contains an NHL out clause for that final year so his next opportunity to try to secure an NHL position won’t come until 2022 at the earliest.