{"id":28124,"date":"2018-05-17T13:26:50","date_gmt":"2018-05-17T17:26:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=28124"},"modified":"2018-05-17T15:32:17","modified_gmt":"2018-05-17T19:32:17","slug":"toronto-maple-leafs-sign-russian-defenseman-igor-ozhiganov","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2018\/05\/17\/toronto-maple-leafs-sign-russian-defenseman-igor-ozhiganov\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Toronto Maple Leafs sign Russian defenseman Igor Ozhiganov"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2018\/04\/30\/toronto-maple-leafs-par-lindholm\/\" target=\"_self\">reported signing<\/a> of Swedish centre <strong>Par Lindholm<\/strong>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/nhl-teams\/maple-leafs\/\" target=\"_self\">Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a>\u00a0have made another addition from the European free agent market. <strong>Igor Ozhiganov<\/strong> is a 25-year-old right-handed defenseman who has spent parts of the last eight seasons in the Kontinential Hockey League (KHL). Since 2015 he has been a big part of a successful CSKA team, never missing the playoffs as a member of the team. He was linked to the Leafs as early as August 2017 when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/hockey\/nhl\/411-igor-ozhiganov-russian-defenceman-connected-leafs\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mike Babcock and Lou Lamoriello travelled to Russia to pay him a visit.<\/a>\u00a0Reports out of Russia indicate he has signed a one-year deal with the Leafs. This would be the first signing for new Leafs general manager <strong>Kyle Dubas.<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"cy\" dir=\"ltr\">Per <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Boogaard_2?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@Boogaard_2<\/a> Igor Ozhiganov signed 1-year deal with <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/TMLtalk?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#TMLtalk<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Igor Eronko (@IgorEronko) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/IgorEronko\/status\/997161916677218304?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 17, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h1>Igor Ozhiganov Signs With Toronto Maple Leafs<\/h1>\n<h3>Playstyle<\/h3>\n<p>Ozhiganov is a good skater for his size, 6&#8217;2&#8243; and 210 lbs. Even coming off a down year in offensive production, he will challenge for the &#8220;<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/p\/polakro01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Roman Polak<\/a><\/strong>&#8221; position with the Leafs. He can penalty kill, check, block shots, everything teams look for in a bottom-pairing defenceman. Oddly enough, Ozhiganov was reduced to that role with CSKA at times because of the Leafs buyout of fellow right-handed defenceman <strong>Alexei Marchenko<\/strong>, who promptly returned to CSKA. Ozhiganov performed admirably in his role, helping his Moscow team reach the Gagarin Cup finals, only to lose to another possible future Leaf, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/leafs\/comments\/7bploo\/a_little_update_on_vladimir_tkachyov_who_the\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ak Bars Kazan&#8217;s <\/a><strong>Vladimir Tkachyov<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h3>Contract<\/h3>\n<p>While contract details have not been released the CBA indicates that Ozhiganov was bound to a one-year Entry Level Contract (ELC). The maximum on such a contract includes a $925,000 salary plus bonuses. He will be exempt from waivers, and if he&#8217;s sent to the Marlies he will have an AHL salary as this will be a two-way deal. A much cheaper option than Polak has been over the years, Ozhiganov&#8217;s signing has almost entirely ensured the loyal Czech will not be returning for a third time.<\/p>\n<p>This marks the seventh European free agent signed since March 2015, most notably including <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/z\/zaitsni01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nikita Zaitsev<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/b\/borgman01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Andreas Borgman<\/a><\/strong>. It remains to be seen if Ozhiganov joins the Marlies. It could be on a Professional Try-Out (PTO) for the playoffs, or simply to workout and familiarize himself with the city and staff.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"uMKnH28fSfZzty3Q4ZRllg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.ca\/detail\/928598350\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'uMKnH28fSfZzty3Q4ZRllg',sig:'9mbz-k__-YpI8NrUuVBssHQl2e4dyFnvdguaD2tmzdc=',w:'594px',h:'391px',items:'928598350',caption: true ,tld:'ca',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After the reported signing of Swedish centre Par Lindholm, the Toronto Maple Leafs\u00a0have made another addition from the European free agent market. Igor Ozhiganov is a 25-year-old right-handed defenseman who has spent parts of the last eight seasons in the Kontinential Hockey League (KHL). Since 2015 he has been a big part of a successful [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2387,"featured_media":28377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2003,3271,34,18],"tags":[3277,875,72],"class_list":["post-28124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-khl","category-european-leagues","category-news","category-leafs","tag-igor-ozhiganov","tag-roman-polak","tag-toronto-maple-leafs"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2387"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}