Undrafted 8th year Russian-born left wing Sergei Kalinan(15) has decided two seasons in North America is plenty enough and elected to return to the KHL signing for 2017/2018 with SKA St. Petersburg.
The big 6’3″ 201 lbs. forward agreed to a pair of single season deals with New Jersey Devils to come over after 5 seasons with hometown team Avangard Omsk but seemed to come up a bit short scoring 8 goals and 7 assists through 75 NHL games as a rookie.
Unfortunately he didn’t exactly get off to a great start heading into his second campaign scoring only 2 goals and 2 assists in 43 games and found himself traded away to Toronto Maple Leafs for the last leg of his one-way, decently paid contract.
Heading north though they seemed to have no intention of having him skate with the big club and reassigned him to affiliate Toronto Marlies.
He didn’t exactly light the lamp in the minors mirroring the pair of goals and assists in 19 AHL games, then adding only another tally through 11 postseason contests.
The 26-year old seem to lumber in the pair of games we witnessed and may have been suffering from a bit of an injury but definitely didn’t look right.
He definitely has enough size to be an effective power forward if he decides to use it.