said earlier this week<\/a>, “Klepov might have a chance to fast-track to the NHL.<\/p>\n“We just like his compete level. We like the drive that he has to score goals, and right now, it’s just a matter of getting him stronger (6-foot, 180 pounds), because there’s a lot of really top-notch athletic ability with this player as well.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
That being said, if he doesn’t crack the Ducks’ roster out of camp this fall, he will head back to the Saginaw Spirit of the OHL.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Klepov has dual Russian\/U.S. ties: he\u00a0was born in Florida while his parents were visiting relatives, but he spent much of his youth in Moscow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Anaheim Ducks have convinced 2026 first-round pick Nikita Klepov to break his commitment to the NCAA for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":827110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-827109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/827110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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The Anaheim Ducks have convinced 2026 first-round pick Nikita Klepov to break his commitment to the NCAA for next season, by signing a three-year entry-level deal. It comes with a $1.575 million AAV and a $1.075 cap hit. The move comes as a surprise. Klepov had committed back in 2024 to head to Michigan State University for the 2026-27 campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n