Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Radulov is playing in the NHL next year, says Radulov

AlexRadulovAP

According to multiple reports (including this one from Sport Express), on-again, off-again NHLer Alexander Radulov has confirmed he’ll be playing in the NHL next season.

Radulov, who turns 30 in July, will be making his second North American comeback. The first came in 2012, when he returned to the team he was drafted by and debuted with -- The Nashville Predators. Radulov left the Preds in 2008 amid great acrimony, signing a deal with KHL club Salavat Yulaev Ufa while still under contract in Nashville.

Radulov’s first comeback wasn’t ideal.

Though he did rack up points -- seven in nine regular season games, six in eight playoff games -- his tenure ended badly as he and fellow Preds teammate Andrei Kostitsyn were suspended for breaking curfew during a second-round series against the Coyotes.

The Preds would eventually be bounced by the ‘Yotes, and cut ties with Radulov. That led to him going back to the KHL, where he’s been one of the league’s marquee players over the last four years.

Though he’s been a major headcase, Radulov’s talent is undeniable. He was Russia’s leading scorer at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi -- a team that featured Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin and Pavel Datsyuk -- and has repeatedly torn apart the KHL: 71 points in 46 games last year, 65 points in 53 games this year.

That talent is why he keeps getting chances.

As for which NHL team Radulov will play for... well, that remains to be seen. Colorado has long been pegged as an interested suitor, thanks to Radulov’s connection with Patrick Roy, his junior coach in QMJHL Quebec (where Radulov famously scored 61 goals and 152 points in a 62-game season.)