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The Carolina Hurricanes have entertained trade offers for impressive young defenseman Alexander Nikishin this summer, according to rumors. Now we’re understanding why. According to a report out of Russia, the restricted free agent D-man has named his price, and after just one year in the NHL, it might be a little too rich for the Hurricanes’ blood.<\/p>\n
When asked about rumors that he wants $8 million per season on his new deal, the defenceman smiled and said: ‘More.’<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u2014Daria Tuboltseva, rg.org<\/a><\/p>\n “The salary cap keeps growing, and defencemen are getting bigger salaries,” the Russian added. “You can already feel the difference. I think contracts will keep getting bigger and bigger over time.”<\/p>\n But while he sits without a contract as we head into the final month of the summer break, he’s leaving all the negotiating to his representatives.<\/p>\n “My agents handle that. I don’t push the situation much, they take care of everything themselves. If something concrete comes up, they’ll call me. Right now there’s nothing concrete about the contract.”<\/p>\n Nikishin says he is demanding north of $8M on a new contract<\/p>\n Nikishin’s two-year entry-level deal expired after his rookie season this past year. His first season in the NHL went extremely well for the left-shot defenseman, as he produced 11 goals and 33 points with a plus\/minus rating of +18, along with 132 hits delivered in 81 games. He averaged 18:11 ice time per night. He earned a spot on the NHL All-Rookie Team.<\/p>\n The playoffs did not go as well, as he suffered a minor concussion early, and his role shrunk considerably. He saw only sheltered third-pairing minutes upon his return. He averaged just 14:50 TOI in the postseason, and had just one point in 17 games. Nevertheless, he’s got a Stanley Cup ring from his one and only season in the NHL.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Canes have $9.8 million in cap space remaining for the coming season, per PuckPedia, and whether they’re ready to give 90% of it to Nikishin is still very much up in the air.\u00a0<\/p>\n His name will continue to be on the rumor mill until a deal is done, but the big Russian just ignores all that.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Trade rumors are normal for us.”<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Carolina Hurricanes have entertained trade offers for impressive young defenseman Alexander Nikishin this summer, according to rumors.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":839395,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-839394","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\/839394","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=839394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/839395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}