Today was a busy day overseas for former NHL players, with several familiar names inking new deals. Both Sergei Kostitsyn and Andrei Kostitsyn have found new teams, though will not be together this season. Sergei, 33, has signed with the Bratislava Capitals in the ICEHL for the rest of the year as he returns from a back injury that kept him out in 2019-20. Once a 50-point man in the NHL with the Nashville Predators, he has been playing in the KHL since 2013.
His older brother Andrei also has a new deal, this time leaving Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk of the KHL for Dynamo Pardubice of the Czech league. The 35-year-old had 10 points in 24 KHL games this year but will try a new league for the first time since leaving the NHL in 2012.
- J.T. Brown, who spent all of last season with the Iowa Wild of the AHL, is off to Sweden to play for IF Bjorkloven of the second tier. The former Tampa Bay Lightning forward has 365 career NHL games under his belt but finds himself looking for work like so many other fringe players. Brown had 22 points in 62 games for Iowa last year, while racking up 55 penalty minutes. He’ll be joined by Francis Perron, who has at times been a standout in the minor leagues but never did get an NHL opportunity. The 24-year-old had 18 points in 42 games last season with the Utica Comets and will now test his skills overseas.
- Zach Boychuk, who last played in the NHL during the 2014-15 season and has spent the last several years in the KHL and NLA, will now be suiting up for Eisbaren Berlin in the German DEL. Originally a first-round pick of the Carolina Hurricanes in 2008, the 31-year-old Boychuk had 13 points in 15 games for HC Fribourg-Gotteron last season.