April 27: Nothing is official yet, but Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet writes that the Coyotes are indeed the frontrunner to sign Jaskin and that it could actually be a two-year deal.
April 21: Apparently, Dmitrij Jaskin can score anywhere but the NHL. That doesn’t mean he won’t give it another try. The former St. Louis Blues forward is eyeing a return to North America after two outstanding seasons in the KHL. After a report out of Russia emerged that had Jaskin signing a one-year deal with the Arizona Coyotes, Craig Morgan of AZ Coyotes Insider spoke to his agent Allain Roy. Roy confirmed that the Coyotes are one of the teams they are talking to, but that no decision has been made yet.
Jaskin, 28, has dominated the KHL the last two years, scoring 69 goals and 123 points in 117 regular season games. He’s been nearly a point-per-game player in the playoffs too, registering eight goals and 14 points in 16 postseason contests. That performance correlates with the incredible scoring numbers that Jaskin put up in his one season of CHL hockey–46 goals and 99 points in just 51 games with the Moncton Wildcats. He was a strong offensive player in the AHL too, but just couldn’t ever seem to find that consistency with the Blues. In 327 career NHL games, all but 37 of them coming with St. Louis, Jaskin scored just 73 points.
Still, you can understand why an NHL team would be interested in giving the 6’2″ 224-lbs forward another shot. His last contract carried just a $1.1MM salary and it’s hard to believe he’ll be able to land substantially more than that upon his return–at least not right away. Even though his KHL numbers have been off the charts, there’s still a lot of proving Jaskin would have to do to convince an NHL team he can be a regular in the top-six. Blues fans that don’t want to go down that road again need not worry; Jeremy Rutherford of The Athletic tweets that the Blues are not on Jaskin’s list of interested teams.