Remember André Petersson?
The Ducks traded
Alex Grant for him in a
prospect swap in 2014. He spent a short amount of time in our system, had a good performance for the Norfolk Admirals. Decided to go play in Russia and hasn't since been heard of in North America.
After spending two seasons in the KHL,
Petersson has developed into a PPG performer in the KHL (44 points in 45 games last year). The 16-17 KHL season is already underway, and Petersson has taken his game even further -- 3 games, 3 goals and 7 points.
Even though I don't think he's able to keep this up for long, the guy is putting Panarin level numbers on a much worse KHL team. With the success guys like Panarin and Donskoi have had in the NHL, there's no way Petersson isn't getting some NHL attention, especially when his contract with Sochi ends next offseason. The beautiful thing about all of this is that Anaheim
gave him a qualifying offer in 2014, but Petersson chose to go to Russia instead. Because he's 25 (turns 26 in September),
we should still have his RFA rights.
So if I'm not mistaken and everything goes according to expectations, we could end up having exclusive negotiating rights to a highly coveted European free agent in 2017. Talk about a turn of events!