{"id":28738,"date":"2018-07-03T09:26:55","date_gmt":"2018-07-03T13:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=28738"},"modified":"2020-12-26T16:39:15","modified_gmt":"2020-12-26T21:39:15","slug":"nail-yakupov-signs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2018\/07\/03\/nail-yakupov-signs\/","title":{"rendered":"Nail Yakupov Signs with SKA St. Petersburg in the KHL"},"content":{"rendered":"

KHL team SKA St. Petersburg have signed free agent forward\u00a0Nail Yakupov<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0to a two-year contract. This contract expires at the end of the 2019-20 season. Yakupov became an unrestricted free agent when he was not qualified by the Colorado Avalanche<\/a> in June.<\/p>\n

\n

1st overall pick in 2012 #NHLDraft<\/a> @Nail10_1993<\/a> is heading to SKA. pic.twitter.com\/rklNvL54YB<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 KHL (@khl_eng) July 3, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nail Yakupov Moving to SKA St. Petersburg<\/h1>\n

Drafted 1st overall in the 2012 NHL entry draft, Nail Yakupov is probably best known for his dramatic game-tying goal celebration<\/a> against the Los Angeles Kings<\/a> with four seconds left back in a January 2013 regular season game.\u00a0Why? Probably because he hasn’t been able to produce much more at the NHL level despite his draft status. Yakupov scored 17 goals as a rookie in 2012-13\u00a0and has been producing less and less ever since.<\/p>\n

Last season he scored nine goals and seven assists for 16 points in 58 games. His Corsi for percentage was 48.0, with a relative Corsi of 0; both numbers were his lowest in three years.<\/p>\n

After an exciting start that saw him score five points (three goals) in the first four games of the year, Nail Yakupov often found himself in the press box as a scratch later on. He also failed to appear in any of Colorado’s six playoff games against the Nashville Predators<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nail Yakupov’s Future<\/h2>\n

Although he is still just 24, Yakupov heads back to Russia. If he can put up a pair of good seasons there,\u00a0perhaps an NHL team will give him another shot down the road. He shows flashes of brilliance and skill that has likely been the main reason a team could take a chance\u00a0on him in the future with a short-term contract. With his speed and powerful shot, Nail Yakupov has tools that other players would love to possess. Unfortunately, he’s yet to exhibit these on a consistent basis at the NHL level. Instead, Yakupov hopes to be a consistent scorer in Russia.<\/p>\n

Main Photo: PHILADELPHIA, PA – NOVEMBER 04: Nail Yakupov #64 of the Colorado Avalanche celebrates his goal at 5:37 of the third period against the Philadelphia Flyers at the Wells Fargo Center on November 4, 2017 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Avalanche defeated the Flyers 5-4 in the shootout. (Photo by Bruce Bennett\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KHL team SKA St. Petersburg have signed free agent forward\u00a0Nail Yakupov\u00a0to a two-year contract. This contract expires at the end of the 2019-20 season. Yakupov became an unrestricted free agent when he was not qualified by the Colorado Avalanche in June. 1st overall pick in 2012 #NHLDraft @Nail10_1993 is heading to SKA. pic.twitter.com\/rklNvL54YB \u2014 KHL […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2377,"featured_media":23405,"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":[34,28,2003],"tags":[36,5738,191,2569,655,662,955],"class_list":["post-28738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-avalanche","category-khl","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-hockey-news","tag-nail-yakupov","tag-news","tag-nhl-draft","tag-nhl-free-agency","tag-nhl-news"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28738","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\/2377"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}