Nearly two months into free agency, veteran goaltender Ilya Samsonov finds himself still looking for a team to play with this season. It appears at least one KHL team investigated the potential of bringing him back home as KHL Metallurg Sports Director Evgeny Biryukov told Match TV’s Nikita Maximov that he talked to the 28-year-old about playing for them but Samsonov’s intention is to remain in the NHL for the upcoming season. Samsonov posted a 2.82 GAA and a .891 SV% in 29 starts last season with Vegas, numbers that weren’t too much of an improvement over 2023-24 when he was in Toronto. At this point, he may have to settle for a training camp PTO and hope to land a second-string option from there.
Elsewhere around the hockey world:
- Still with the KHL, player agent Darryl Wolski relayed (Twitter link) the top-five KHL salaries for the upcoming season. Long-time AHL winger Rocco Grimaldi has the highest base salary, checking in around $1.19MM US. Meanwhile, winger Daniel Sprong has the highest potential pay day when factoring in performance bonuses. After making $975K last season, his base salary this year is close to that while if he reaches his incentives, he could ultimately wind up with a raise compared to a year ago. Former NHL winger Dmitrij Jaskin is the only other player with a seven-figure USD salary in that league this season.
- Dean Evason had a solid first year in Columbus, helping lead the Blue Jackets to an improbable late-season playoff push that ultimately came up just short. It turns out he very nearly didn’t have the opportunity to join them as Michael Arace of The Columbus Dispatch noted in a thorough profile of the bench boss that it looked like he was going to land the head coaching job in Seattle until they decided to promote Dan Bylsma from the AHL to the top job instead. Bylsma, of course, was let go back in April after just one season behind their bench.
Don’t understand why Samsonov isn’t an Oiler by now.
They need to roll every single die they can get their hands.
You never know with goalies. One of their own could suddenly have a career year. So it would make sense to wait until closer to the TD.
Cap space. Why roll the dice on another guy who is inconsistent and is by no means guaranteed to be good. Especially when you can’t afford him.
I guarantee you there’s guys making more than that in the KHL. It’s still the Wild West in Russia, they’ll straight up give players they like bags of cash. Contracts are amended and terminated all the time. And yea, with that sometimes players get jerked around and don’t get paid. High risk, high reward.
KHL teams are state run. What happens if the budget doesnt get approved? You’re out of luck
Yea pretty much, directly and indirectly. Could be very fruitful for a player and also could be a disaster, haven’t really heard of an average in-between experience there.