While a number of Jets prospects are starting to make their way over to Manitoba to get ready for training camp, today saw a different sort of move for goalie prospect Mikhail Berdin (2016 6th rounder) who saw his rights traded by SKA St Petersburg to Sochi for monetary compensation according to his now former team. This may simply be a paper transaction since it seems likely that the Russian netminder will be returning soon to North America for training camp although in the tweet by SKA they say that Yakov Trenin and Dmitry Zavgorodniy are heading back to North America for training camp but don’t say that about Berdin.
Photo Credit: Colby Spence (Illegal Curve)
As I detailed in yesterday’s overseas prospect report it has been an unusual month for Berdin with SKA.
His last start was an odd one on December 7th. He played 65 minutes of the game but the coach pulled him for his backup during the shootout (his team lost the game). In the 13 games SKA has played since mid November Berdin has one start and one backup opportunity. He was replaced on the senior national team for the Channel One Cup but that could simply be because he needs to return to Winnipeg for Jets training camp.
This was after the fact that for the early part of the season he had played the most games of any of the four netminders in the SKA stable. He finishes his time with SKA posting a 6-3-2 record, a 2.51 GAA and .912 save%.
You might recall that Berdin’s rights were originally traded from Sochi to SKA back in September. It will be three months to the day that he is being reacquired by
Here was a brief Q&A he did with SKA today.
