The Chicago Blackhawks got a nice consolation prize for falling in the draft lottery. Roman Kantserov, who led the KHL in goals this season, is expected to sign with the team and play in the NHL next season.
Metallurg Magnitogorsk announced on social media Friday that it has terminated the 21-year-old forward’s contract because Kantserov decided “to continue his career in the NHL Chicago Blackhawks system.”
The Blackhawks had the second-best odds to get the first pick in the lottery and a chance to select Penn State winger Gavin McKenna to pair alongside Connor Bedard. But Toronto jumped up to first and Chicago fell to fourth. McKenna and Swedish forward Ivar Stenberg — the two most NHL ready wings available — will likely be gone.
Getting Kantserov eases the pain. Kantserov led the KHL with 36 goals. He’s the first 21-year-old to lead the league in goals since Kirill Kaprizov in 2018-19.
Kantserov’s 64 points in 63 games saw him finish ninth in points and his 1.02 points per game average was good enough for 10th.
He was a second-round pick in 2023 by the Blackhawks. He has spent the last three years playing as a full-time KHL player with all those campaigns spent with Magnitogorsk.
He combined to score 21 goals through his first 100 regular-season games. Kantserov showed signs of promise in his first KHL postseason run when he had four goals and 13 points in 23 games.
This season, however, would see him tap further into that potential to have one of the strongest individual campaigns in the KHL.
His development only adds to a Blackhawks farm system that is considered to be one of the best in the NHL. It will get stronger with the the No. 4 pick in this year’s draft.
Chicago’s rebuild has seen the club amass 12 first-round picks since 2022. It’s a strategy that has seen the Blackhawks have multiple first-rounders for every draft cycle except this year as they continue to build around their homegrown core that’s led by Bedard, Anton Frondell, Arytom Levshunov, Oliver Moore and Frank Nazar, among others.
The KHL, the premier league in the Russian hockey system, has had a recent history of its teams terminating contracts for those prospects who have been drafted by NHL clubs. Last April, SKA St. Petersburg announced that it had done the same with Ivan Demidov before the No. 5 pick of the 2024 NHL Draft signed his entry-level contract with the Montreal Canadiens.
