Devils sign prospect Arseniy Gritsyuk to one-year contract
On Tuesday, New Jersey Devils general manager Tom Fitzgerald announced the team has signed forward Arseniy Gritsyuk to a one-year, entry-level contract, which is set to take effect during the 2025-26 season.
The official terms of the deal have yet to be disclosed.
Grits are now a New Jersey delicacy. We don’t make the rules.
📰: https://t.co/GC5AMmirz9 pic.twitter.com/x6tVaXNuLM
Gritsyuk was originally taken by the Devils in the fifth round, 129th overall, of the 2019 NHL Draft. The Russian winger was seen as a talented scorer with some room to grow, something that has taken shape over the past few seasons.
The Krasnoyarsk native has bolstered his stock with SKA St. Petersburg of the Kontinental Hockey League. After posting 38 points in 50 games during the 2023-24 season, Gritsyuk posted a career-high 44 points this past season, notching 17 goals and 27 assists in 49 points. He finished fourth on the team in scoring behind the likes of current Montreal Canadiens forward Ivan Demidov and Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Alexander Nikishin.
Gritsyuk added another five points in six playoff games before SKA was knocked out of the playoffs by Dynamo Moscow in six games.
Gritsyuk was on the Avangard Omsk team that won the Gagarin Cup in 2021. He spent parts of three seasons in Omsk before signing with St. Petersburg, including the 2021-22 campaign, during which he earned the Aleksei Cherepanov Award as the KHL’s top rookie.
In 216 KHL appearances, Gritsyuk scored 68 goals and 84 assists for 152 points, including 25 points in 43 postseason games.
Internationally, Gritsyuk has taken home some hardware. Along with winning a silver medal at the 2019 IIHF Under-18 Men’s World Championship, he was on the Russian Olympic Committee team that was runners-up to Finland at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Gritsyuk also won bronze at the 2018 Hlinka Gretzky Cup, along with representing his country at the 2021 IIHF World Junior Championships.