Tuesday, July 03, 2018

Gone to Europe (Jul 3)



On Tuesday morning, it was announced that Nail Yakupov will be heading back to Russia to play in the KHL, putting his disappointing NHL career on hold, for now.  The 1st overall pick in the 2012 entry draft has failed to live up to any of those expectations, bouncing around the league a bit over the last few seasons, finally playing with the Avalanche in 2018.  Yakupov was barely a fringe player last year, ranking 317th among all forwards in scoring with 16 points in 58 games.  It seems rather unlikely that we'll see him play in the NHL again, but I guess you never know.

Speaking of fringe players, David Desharnais wasn't too far off the top 200 in pool scoring among all forwards, finishing 227th with 28 points in 71 games, but he'll be heading over across the pond to play with Lokomotiv Yaroslavl in the KHL.  The 31-year old must not have had many NHL teams knocking on his door during the free agent speaking period or else, he'd probably be still chatting some teams up.  You can strike him from your list for now.



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