{"id":946206,"date":"2026-10-25T22:24:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T22:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/946206\/"},"modified":"2026-10-25T22:24:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T22:24:11","slug":"hurricanes-sign-defenceman-alexander-nikishin-to-one-year-3m-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/946206\/","title":{"rendered":"Hurricanes sign defenceman Alexander Nikishin to one-year, $3M deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a data-team=\"carolina-hurricanes\" data-league=\"nhl\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/hockey\/nhl\/teams\/carolina-hurricanes\/\" target=\"_self\" class=\"sn-team-post-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Carolina Hurricanes<\/a> have signed the second-year defenceman to a one-year, $3-million deal, ending his absence after he missed the first 12 games of the season, the team <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Canes\/status\/2114462028400070694\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">announced<\/a> Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re glad that Alexander is returning to our group,\u201d\u00a0general manager Eric Tulsky said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/hurricanes\/news\/canes-sign-nikishin-to-one-year-contract\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">statement<\/a> put out by the team.\u00a0\u201cThis 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nikishin, 25, became a restricted free agent this past summer after completing a two-year, entry-level contract. <\/p>\n<p>After contract talks with the reigning Stanley Cup champs stalled in the off-season, the defenceman requested a trade and did not report to the team&#8217;s training camp in September. <\/p>\n<p>The defenceman scored 11 goals and totalled 33 points in 81 regular-season games in 2025-26. During Carolina&#8217;s run to the Cup, Nikishin had one assist in 17 games. He led rookie defencemen in plus-minus (plus-18) last year. <\/p>\n<p>Selected by the Hurricanes in the third round of the 2020 Draft, Nikishin officially joined Carolina in the 2024-25 season after signing his entry-level deal. <\/p>\n<p>He first appeared in the 2024-25 post-season, skating in four games while recording one assist. Last year was his first regular season with the club after spending the prior three years in Russia&#8217;s KHL with St. Petersburg SKA.<\/p>\n<p>Despite being without the young blueliner, the Hurricanes have coasted to an 8-2-2 record in the early going and sit atop the Metropolitan Division heading into Sunday&#8217;s action. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Carolina Hurricanes have signed the second-year defenceman to a one-year, $3-million deal, ending his absence after he&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":946207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-946206","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\/946206","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=946206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/946207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=946206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=946206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=946206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}