Nikita Zaitzev finally opens up on allegations from his ex-wife
Late in 2019, Nikita Zaitsev's ex-wife Margarita made some startling accusations against the current Ottawa Senator and former Toronto Maple Leaf. She accused Zaitsev of kidnapping their two children back in Russia and alleged he wasn't paying child support. At the time, Zaitsev left it up to his agent to respond publicly with a statement saying the accusations were false and asking people to respect the family's privacy. Now, in a very long message on Instagram, Zaitsev addressed those accusations as well as several other topics, including making some accusations of his own. The original post is in Russian. It was translated by a person on our staff fluent in both Russian and English. It reads:
I kept silent for so long and did not want to comment, but the current state of things tells me that it is time to insert myself into the situation and clear things up.
Recently, I have found a lot of "truths" about myself and my family. For example, I forcefully tore my children from the arms of their loving mother, that while married to Rita (short for Margarita) Gotovtseva I had affairs left and right, abandoning my daughters. I found out that my parents are terrible people who care only about themselves and abandoned their granddaughters.
To the very end, I wanted to preserve my family, but for Margarita, the concept of family is foreign. I think from what I saw and what Rita told me, family is not for the Gotovtsev family (Gotovtsev is Margarita's maiden name).
(Her) mother would lock her in the bathroom for an entire 24 hours, hit her, complained to the police about her, and did everything, according to Rita, to make her hate her mother and her younger sister. It was strange for me to read (Margarita's) thoughts about my family. Apparently my father 'barely' had enough money to buy me skates...and afterwards I skated (career took off) and I showered my parents with money.
Margarita, my dad did indeed put me on skates at age 5 and my first salary came in Novosibirsk at age 17. As you can easily calculate, for 12 years I studied/practiced hockey and my mother and father were always around. They supported me through my failures, injuries, stresses, and celebrated my successes. My mother was a real housewife, who made sure my brother and I were always fed and clothed, and now it is my time to help them, which is I want to do and have the capability to do. Strange that you would accuse them of greed.
I love my daughters very much, and no matter what happens, Sonya and Vera will always be in my heart. I will do everything to make sure they grow up in warmth, love and care, that they receive good care and a good education. I'm against broken homes, but everything that happened in ours cannot be fixed, nor redone, and so we must move forward
God knows that I wanted to preserve my family to the very end, but everything done by the person I considered my most intimate friend defies logic. I want no more of this dirt! I fought for my children and will continue fighting till the end.
That is where the statement ends. Late in December of 2019, Margarita was awarded custody of the two daughters involved in the family dispute with visitation rights extended to Zaitsev. He expressed his intent to appeal through his lawyer.
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YESTERDAY
MAY 21, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Juraj Slafkovsky | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| Nick Suzuki | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Cole Caufield | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Phillip Danault | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Ivan Demidov | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Seth Jarvis | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Eric Robinson | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Alexandre Texier | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Sebastian Aho | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Alexandre Carrier | - | 1 | 1 | |
| William Carrier | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jake Evans | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Kaiden Guhle | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Alex Newhook | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Andrei Svechnikov | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Frederik Andersen | - | - | - | |
| Josh Anderson | - | - | - | |
| Jackson Blake | - | - | - | |
| Zachary Bolduc | - | - | - | |
| Jalen Chatfield | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||