Alexander Nikishin still doesn’t appear close to finding a new team, and the latest word is that Carolina may be forced to wait this out a little longer.
Elliotte Friedman said on Sportsnet’s Saturday Headlines that there is no trade for Nikishin on the immediate horizon, and that fits the way this NHL season has started to unfold. With the schedule already rolling, urgency around a deal has not really materialized, and that may leave Nikishin with a narrow path: return to the Hurricanes and rebuild some leverage from there. Carolina, which has about $9.3MM in cap space, is open to bringing him back if that’s where this drags.
There is still a clock, but it may not be as tight as it looks at first glance. Frank Seravalli of Sportsnet reported that Nikishin does not need to sign by the start of December.
Normally, an RFA has to sign by 5 p.m. EST on December 1 for the contract to count for the season.
After that, the player would not have a valid contract and would be unable to play.
The trade picture has had one major near-miss already. Friedman previously said on 32 Thoughts that the New York Rangers had a trade essentially lined up for Nikishin, but the contract side never matched up with the defenseman.
New York had been eyeing a major blue-liner to fit into its current retool, the kind of move that would have pushed the Rangers further toward playoff territory after their offseason work. The St.
Louis Blues have also shown strong interest, and the Predators have had interest as well, according to Friedman.
Nikishin’s age and NHL experience matter here too. At 25, with only one year in the NHL, he is not eligible for an offer sheet as a 10.2.c RFA.
He only needs 10 professional games this season for it to count toward his NHL experience, which would give him two years on his resume. Because he signed his first NHL deal with Carolina at 23, he needs two years rather than the three required by younger players.
That setup is why a short-term contract keeps coming up. If Nikishin signs a “kick the can down the road” deal and gets through the 2026-27 season, he would not reach unrestricted free agency until 2029-30. The upside for him is that he would no longer be in the awkward spot of being untouchable to other teams in the offer-sheet sense; at that point, the focus would shift to whether Carolina would match any outside offer.
Before Zeev Buium signed in Vancouver, both the Rangers and Nikishin were working in the neighborhood of a $9MM AAV. The Rangers were not far from what Nikishin wanted, but apparently not in the exact structure he was after.
New York also sits with under $1MM in 2026-27 cap space and has roughly $37MM tied up in eight defensemen, so there were always questions about what the Hurricanes would have received back in an inter-division swap. Top prospect Alberts Smits emerging on his entry-level deal may have also altered the Rangers’ thinking.
Buium ultimately signed for eight years at a $9.38MM AAV. Nikishin was reportedly willing to get to that level, but he is believed to prefer a shorter term, and that may be the sticking point with any team still weighing him.
He recently changed agents amid the trade request, leaving Quartexx Hockey and hiring Paul Theofanous, according to PuckPedia. Theofanous represents players such as Kirill Kaprizov, Artemi Panarin, and Sergei Bobrovsky, and he is now handling Nikishin’s negotiations.
On the ice, Nikishin’s résumé is already strong for a player still sitting in restricted-free-agent limbo. He scored 11 goals and 33 points in his rookie NHL season last year while averaging just over 18 minutes per night. Despite the tension with Carolina, a return to the KHL is reportedly not on the table.
For now, the Hurricanes are still in the position of asking for a major package if they do move him. Friedman has reported that Carolina is seeking two first-round picks, whether in actual draft capital or the equivalent in players taken in the first 32 selections of their drafts. That price tag reflects both the upside Nikishin showed last season and the reality that teams have largely already set their rosters.
Carolina also has four defensemen set to become UFAs at the end of the season, with only Jaccob Slavin, K’Andre Miller and Sean Walker signed beyond it. If Nikishin ends up taking the short-term route and coming back, the Hurricanes’ offseason picture only gets more complicated.
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