{"id":813927,"date":"2026-07-21T07:47:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T07:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/813927\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T07:47:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T07:47:14","slug":"bruins-lose-25-year-old-center-to-contract-with-avalanche","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/813927\/","title":{"rendered":"Bruins Lose 25-Year Old Center to Contract with Avalanche"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/boston-bruins\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Boston Bruins<\/a> lost a talented 25-year old center in free agency on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Georgii Merkulov agreed to a contract with the Colorado Avalanche.<\/p>\n<p>The Avs announced it as a one-year pact with this post on social media:<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">We have signed Georgii Merkulov to a one-year-deal\ud83d\udcdd <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/EFlvyA9JcX\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/EFlvyA9JcX<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Colorado Avalanche (@Avalanche) <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Avalanche\/status\/2079311748272734618?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\">July 20, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>MORE:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/boston-bruins\/news\/zdeno-chara-nhl-height-record-7-foot-1-jeopardy\/3e17cda19299029226994feb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Zdeno Chara&#8217;s NHL height record is in 7-foot-1 jeopardy<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Merkulov has followed a fascinating path to the NHL, and in the last three years, he&#8217;s gotten into 11 total games with the Bruins, notching one assist.<\/p>\n<p>He began in the minor leagues in Russia with Stupino Kapitan Jr. for three seasons &#8212; including a 2018-19 season when he had 22 goals and 24 assists.<\/p>\n<p>He spent time in the USHL with the Youngstown Phantoms in 2019-20, the same season when he made his debut at the senior level in Russia with Tambov HC.<\/p>\n<p>After that bouncing around, Merkulov played a full 2020-21 season with the Phantoms in the USHL, putting up 14 goals and 26 assists (40 points) in 38 games.<\/p>\n<p>In 2021-22, he headed to college hockey at Ohio State, putting up 20 goals and 14 assists (34 points) in 36 games.<\/p>\n<p>That earned him a spot with the Providence Bruins in the AHL, and he&#8217;s appeared for Providence in portions of each of the last five seasons.<\/p>\n<p>In 2022-23, he had 55 points in 67 games. The next season, it was 65 points (30 goals, 35 assists) in 67 games.<\/p>\n<p>He had 54 points in 59 games in 2024-25, and he just went for 24 goals and 37 assists (61 points) in 70 games in 2025-26.<\/p>\n<p>The Avalanche likely figure Merkulov will at least help at the AHL level, and given that he&#8217;ll still just turn 26 in October, maybe he&#8217;s still got the potential for more.<\/p>\n<p>If Merkulov reaches his potential, it won&#8217;t be in Boston.<\/p>\n<p>More Bruins<\/p>\n<p>                            <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Boston Bruins lost a talented 25-year old center in free agency on Monday. Georgii Merkulov agreed to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":813928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-813927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}