Why it took so long for the Hurricanes to officially sign Alexander Nikishin

The Carolina Hurricanes officially registered defenseman Alexander Nikishin to an entry-level contract on Saturday following reports from his Russian agent that Nikishin was unhappy.

“We had agreed with his agents to keep the options open for Alex to potentially play a game in Chicago at some point,” Hurricanes General Manager Eric Tulsky said. “But with their season now over, it makes sense to officially register an NHL contract for him, and we are excited for his future with the team.”

Today on Daily Faceoff Live, Frank Seravalli talks about the issues surrounding Nikishin and what took so long.

Tyler Yaremchuk: I’ve only seen the headlines on this story, so I wanted you to maybe give me some insight.The Alexander Nikishin situation in Carolina. Can you tell me a bit about what went on there?

Frank Seravalli: Yeah, so it was an interesting spot because obviously it took so long for Nakitin to get from Russia to the US. The visa process took a long time, and they couldn’t get him into a regular season game to close out the year, so if he signs his NHL contract to burn this year, which was never an issue. He also couldn’t go play in the AHL.

Frank Seravalli: So it is possible to do it the other way around and sign an amateur agreement, I believe, and play in the AHL. But you can’t do it the other way around, if that makes any sense. So once he signed an NHL deal, he’s ineligible for the Calder Cup playoffs. In this case, they were like, “Well, what do we do?” We want to get him playing in North American hockey, but are we really going to dump him right into a playoff series to start? There was a kind of back and forth that was just a pause to say which is the right path here, and I think they wanted to leave the door open to that.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Yeah, yeah, I mean the headlines and like the reports going back and forth, it seemed very confusing, but that is a good, a good point by you, the ATO becoming a professional gig.