Alexander Nikishin’s situation in Carolina has reached the kind of standoff that usually comes with leverage on one side and very little on the other. He has requested a trade, but the Hurricanes don’t sound like a team in a hurry to move him, and for now he remains away from training camp while he waits on a contract and/or a trade.
On The Chris Johnston Show, Chris Johnston said Nikishin is pushing for a big deal, but his options are limited under the CBA. He “doesn’t even have the ability to sign an offer sheet because he doesn’t have enough service time to qualify for that under the CBA,” Johnston said, which leaves Carolina holding most of the cards.
That’s why Johnston believes the Hurricanes can afford to be patient. “I think that they’re willing to be patient to see what, what comes about,” he said, adding that the team has explored trade possibilities but nothing appears urgent right now.
The real question, Johnston said, is how long Nikishin is willing to wait it out. “And and, you know, he’s gonna have to, you know, how, how long, how long do you want to push it, you know, will, will be the question,” he said.
If Carolina digs in, Johnston suggested the defenseman may eventually have to choose between staying on the sidelines and getting into the NHL. “But you know, because he can’t sign an offer sheet, you know, you can ask for a trade, but if the Hurricanes don’t like it, I mean, at a certain point, if he wants to play in the NHL, he might just have to sign a contract.”
Johnston also pointed out that the Hurricanes have kept their business tidy this offseason, returning basically their entire Stanley Cup team and extending captain Jordan Staal on a deal that could reach “pretty pricey $10 million if he hits his performance bonuses in, in two years time.” In his view, that gives Carolina the freedom to wait Nikishin out rather than force the issue.
“And so, you know, now, now they’re into the the grind of that,” Johnston said, “and you know, the Carolina’s returned basically its, its whole Stanley Cup team... So they got a, they don’t have a whole lot of business hanging over them, and you know the way that they operate, not, not an emotional franchise, and the way they do business. You know, I think that they’ll they’ll be calm and see, see how the I guess the turning wheel, if it puts pressure on Nikishan to accept maybe a contract that he wasn’t willing to in the summer.”
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Now the challenge shifts from surprise to expectation, which is usually where the pressure gets heavier in Carolina. Bussi is no longer being treated like an emergency solution or an intriguing waiver claim, and the conversation around him has changed to whether he can sustain that standard over a full season while shouldering the kind of workload the Hurricanes have been searching for. His track record says the ceiling is real, but the next step is the harder one, because proving he can do it once is different from proving he can do it night after night. [Read more 🡒]