Free agent forward Nic Petan is heading overseas. After playing in parts of the last nine NHL seasons, the undersized but versatile minor-league fixture has signed a one-year deal with Russia’s Ak Bars Kazan of the Kontinental Hockey League, per a team announcement. Reports about the signing had been floating around for a few weeks, but it was only made official today.
Petan has always been one of the game’s more peculiar cases, failing to break into a full-time NHL role despite being an elite scoring threat at both the junior and AHL levels. The 2013 second-round pick of the Jets led the WHL in assists with the Portland Winterhawks in back-to-back seasons to bookend his selection, but he’s never managed to convert that offense to strong NHL numbers.
The 29-year-old has only averaged 19 appearances per season over the last nine years, skewed heavily by a 54-game stint on the Winnipeg roster in 2016-17. Since then, he hasn’t appeared in more than 20 games in a single season. In 170 career NHL appearances with the Jets, Maple Leafs, Wild and Canucks, he has 35 points (7 G, 28 A) with a -26 rating in fourth-line minutes, averaging 10:26 per game.
But the AHL has been a much different story for Petan, who’s averaged nearly a point per game there throughout his pro career. He’s compiled 289 points (95 G, 194 A) in 296 minor-league games since turning pro in 2015, but his tweener status has consistently limited his ability to earn consideration for any awards at the AHL level. He’s only ever been named to an AHL All-Star Game once, coming this past season. He had 40 points in 44 games for AHL Iowa while under contract with the Wild, serving as their otherwise hapless affiliate’s best offensive player. He was traded to the Rangers in a swap of minor-league forwards at the March 8 trade deadline, and he finished the season with eight points in 15 games for Hartford without seeing a recall to the Blueshirts.
Once again a UFA, Petan is opting for a premier role with more stability in the KHL rather than spending another season shuttling between NHL and AHL squads. In Kazan, he reunites with a former of recent AHL fixtures, including Riley Barber, Artemi Kniazev and Evgeny Svechnikov.