Veteran winger Martin Erat has spent the past five seasons playing overseas after a 13-year NHL stint but he told Zdenek Janda of iSport that he has decided to call it a career. Injuries limited the 38-year-old to just 16 games with HC Kometa Brno this season but he had been close to a point per game player in the previous three years in the Czech Extraliga.
Erat’s NHL time ended on a relatively quiet note (aside from being part of a trade that Washington would like to forget) but in his prime, he was a reliable and consistent top-six winger, collecting at least 49 points in a stretch of eight consecutive seasons, all with Nashville. Overall, his career winds up with a total of 163 goals and 318 assists in 723 games between the Predators, Capitals, and Coyotes.
Elsewhere around the international hockey world:
- A pair of NHL prospect goaltenders have seen their rights traded in the KHL. HK Sochi announced that they’ve acquired the rights to Jets youngster Mikhail Berdin from CSKA Moscow in exchange for Coyotes prospect Ivan Prosvetov. Both netminders are already under contract to their respective NHL teams for next season but with the start of the 2020-21 AHL campaign certainly in question as long as there are restrictions in terms of allowable attendance, it’s a real possibility that players that are a little lower down the depth chart (Berdin and Prosetov played exclusively in the minors this year) are loaned to the KHL to ensure a full season of development.
- Although he signed his entry-level contract back on Monday, don’t expect Bruins prospect Victor Berglund to play in North America next season. Reporter Mark Divver notes (Twitter link) that Berglund is expected to fulfill his previous commitment to play in Lulea of the SHL for the 2020-21 campaign and then come to North America after. It will be his first taste of action at the top level in Sweden after previously playing in their second-tier Allsvenskan.
- Earlier this week, Germany extended its ban on public events through the end of October due to the ongoing pandemic. Accordingly, as Szymon Szemberg of the Alliance of European Hockey Clubs notes (Twitter link), that places the start of the DEL in jeopardy and will also have an impact on other international events such as the Champions Hockey League which is set to begin its 2020-21 schedule in early October. A handful of NHL free agents (often those who have been in the minors for most of the year) sign in the DEL each year but that now may be one opportunity that they opt not to pursue this offseason.