Notable Players Headed Back to Europe

This morning's early news was that Alex Ponikarovsky, an unrestricted free agent, who had played for the Devils last season, has signed with SKA St. Petersburg in the KHL, thus taking him out of the pool of players to be taken in the draft this year.  To be fair, his 9 points in 42 games during the 2013 season was going to be more than enough to do that for the most part, signing in Europe was just the final nail in the coffin for him.

Ponikarovsky has been somewhat of an enigma over his time in the NHL, some times he could put the puck in the net, other times you wonder if he had even left the dressing room and hit the ice.

Nevertheless, this leads me into catching up a bit more on what has transpired over the last couple months, trying to get myself caught up a bit on the blog, more than anything.  I have kept my lists all updated, just haven't done any writing about it.

In keeping up with the transactions, as best I could, I have found 76 new names heading off to Europe in some fashion or another.  The top scorer of the bunch as the failed experiment by the Calgary Flames, Roman Cervenka, who finished the year with 17 points in 39 games.  He has gone back to Europe, where he was a bit more of a big deal, playing on larger ice and against lesser players than what the NHL had in store for him.

Another notable name, with less-than-notable numbers in 2013, would be Sergei Kostitsyn, who is following his brother back home to Europe (Andrei leaving last Summer), after a pretty poor showing in Nashville in 2013.  Sergei played in 46 games for the Predators, but only mustered up 3 goals and 12 assists, which was likely pretty far from what the team had expected of him for the season.  It was his lowest ranking in pool scoring since the 2010 season, just before he really broke out.  I don't think there is too much love lost here.

36-year old German winger, Jochen Hecht, has decided to make his way back home after a lengthy career in the NHL.  Hecht wasn't really that guy that you would go looking for in most hockey pool drafts and he would really only pop his name up if it was a really deep draft.  His 2012 campaign was cut short badly by injury, only having played in 22 games, which likely affected his 2013 season, where he only scored 14 points in 47 games.  It's probably a good time to go finish up the career back home.

The highest ranked restricted free agent, Alex Burmistrov, who is still growing into his legs, has left the Winnipeg Jets for the 2014 season, to see if he can get some more quality ice-time in the KHL and possibly make a grand return to the NHL at a later date.  It sounds like Burmistrov had quite the tumultuous time in Winnipeg in the 2013 season, so that likely plays a big part his decision to leave and maybe he has something to wait out for his return.  Regardless, he wasn't really going to be draft material, unless someone thought he was going to really break out this season (10 points in 44 games in 2013).

Other names on the list heading over to Europe that catch my eye: Wojtek Wolski, Marc-Andre Bergeron, Antti Miettinen, Colby Armstrong, Alex Kovalev, Teemu Hartikainen, Eric Belanger, Anton Babchuk, Marc-Andre Gragnani and Jussi Rynnas.

Am I forgetting anyone?  Oh, yes.

The shock and awe of the "retirement" of Ilya Kovalchuk from the NHL on July 11th. You don't think I really forgot, did you?

With still an incredible sum of money left on the table, over the extended period of time of his contract remaining, it just came out of nowhere to see that Kovalchuk, arguably one of the best goal scorers in the game still, decided to head home to Russia.  He filed his retirement papers to get out of the lengthy contract, which I believe still had 9 years left on it, and about $75 million, to head home and play where he'd feel more comfortable.

It sounded like the lockout did a number on him, as it had to a number of Russian-born players (allegedly), and it was more of a family decision to go back home and play.  This will also likely do him a lot of good, as the Olympics are in Russia this Winter and he will be well-prepared for those games.

Nevertheless, strike Kovalchuk from your lists for the coming year, he won't be coming back any time soon.