{"id":940813,"date":"2026-10-25T21:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T21:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/940813\/"},"modified":"2026-10-25T21:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T21:22:09","slug":"nikishin-hurricanes-end-stalemate-with-one-year-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/940813\/","title":{"rendered":"Nikishin, Hurricanes end stalemate with one-year contract"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The 25-year-old defenseman has yet to play this season. He became a restricted free agent July 1 after he had 33 points (11 goals, 22 assists) and averaged 18:11 of ice time in 81 regular-season games as a rookie last season. His 11 goals set a Carolina\/Hartford Whalers record for a rookie at his position ahead of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/justin-faulk-8475753\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Justin Faulk<\/a>&#8216;s eight in 66 games of the 2011-12 season and his 33 points were second to Brad Shaw&#8217;s 35 for the Whalers in 1989-90.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re glad that Alexander is returning to our group,&#8221; Hurricanes general manager Eric Tulsky said. &#8220;This has been a long process, but we look forward to him re-entering our locker room ready to contribute with the Hurricanes, as he did during a Stanley Cup championship season last year.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Nikishin, named to the 2025-26 NHL All-Rookie Team, had one assist in 17 Stanley Cup Playoff games to help the Hurricanes win their first championship since 2006. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A third-round pick (No. 69) by Carolina in the 2020 NHL Draft, Nikishin made his NHL debut on May 15, 2025, playing 10:33 in a 3-1 win against the Washington Capitals in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Second Round that sent the Hurricanes to the Eastern Conference Final.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Carolina (9-2-2) leads the NHL with 20 points and hosts the Boston Bruins at Lenovo Center on Tuesday (8 p.m. ET; ESPN, SN360).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 25-year-old defenseman has yet to play this season. He became a restricted free agent July 1 after&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":940814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-940813","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\/940813","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=940813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/940814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=940813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=940813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=940813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}