The winding hockey career of Mark Barberio will take him to Cherepovets next season, as the free agent defenseman has signed a one-year deal with Severstal for 2023-24.
Barberio, 33, left North American pro hockey in 2020 to serve as captain of Lausanne HC in Switzerland before transitioning to the KHL in 2022. The puck-moving defenseman was part of Team Canada at the most recent Olympics and registered 12 points for Dinamo Minsk last season.
It’s been an interesting career to this point for the former QMJHL star, who took the Moncton Wildcats to the 2010 Memorial Cup as part of an incredibly versatile and dynamic defense corps. He and David Savard combined for 137 points that year, and it became obvious that Barberio wouldn’t be the average sixth-round pick.
By 2012, he won the Eddie Shore Award as the AHL’s best defenseman with the Calder Cup champion Norfolk Admirals, a team loaded with future NHL talent. Unfortunately, while Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat, Alex Killorn, and Radko Gudas would go on to huge success at the next level, Barberio struggled with the transition and bounced around for the next several years.
Overall, he played 272 games in the NHL, last appearing with the Colorado Avalanche in 2020. At his age, any thought of a return to the highest level of professional hockey is unlikely, so he’ll have to play out the last few chapters overseas.