Alexander Nikishin will not be at Carolina Hurricanes training camp Thursday. He still does not have a contract.
General manager Eric Tulsky confirmed it himself this week, and he did not sugarcoat it.
"Alexander Nikishin is not under contract currently, so he will not be at camp when we hit the ice on Thursday. We won't be commenting further at this time," Tulsky said.
That is it. No update on talks, no timeline, nothing.
Nikishin, 24, put together a real season for Carolina last year. He posted 33 points on 11 goals and 22 assists across 81 games, with a plus-18 rating.
The playoffs told a different story. He managed just one assist in 17 games and finished at minus-1 as his role shrank when the games got tighter.
He carried a cap hit of 925,000 dollars last season, an absolute bargain for a young defenseman who was logging real minutes on a contending blue line.
Hurricanes head into camp fresh off a 113-point season
Carolina finished 53-22-7 a year ago, good for second overall in the league and first in the Metro, with a goal differential of plus-56.
The blue line in front of Nikishin is already crowded and expensive. Jaccob Slavin, K'Andre Miller, Sean Walker and Jalen Chatfield are all signed and in the mix.
Rod Brind'Amour has run this camp every year since 2018, and it opens Thursday without one of his top young defensemen in the building.
Letting a cost-controlled piece like Nikishin walk into September without a deal is not a great look for a front office that just won 53 games.
It is the hockey equivalent of showing up to a job interview and finding out the offer letter never got signed.
Tulsky is not commenting further. Brind'Amour has not said a word publicly. And Nikishin's locker sits empty when the Hurricanes hit the ice Thursday.
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Camp will start with or without him. What happens after that is anyone's guess.
Should the Hurricanes have locked up Alexander Nikishin before camp even started?
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