Former NHL star was expected back in the league, but he just changed his mind
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Evgeny Kuznetsov signed with Sibir Novosibirsk for 2026-27, and the bonus math inside his one-year KHL contract says more than the signing does.
Evgeny Kuznetsov has signed a one-year KHL contract with Sibir Novosibirsk, closing the door on an NHL return for the 2026-27 season.
The destination is the easy part of this story. The payment schedule is the part worth reading twice.
Match TV reported that Kuznetsov's base salary with Sibir is 35 million rubles, around $427,000. His bonus money can reach 42 million rubles, which is more than the base itself.
He is staying in Russia rather than waiting on a late-summer NHL camp invite.
That structure tells you what Sibir actually paid for, and it was not star power. It was attendance.
The 55-point number is not about skill
The largest single trigger, worth 10 million rubles, pays at 55 points.
Run that against last season and it stops looking like a stretch goal.
Kuznetsov posted 27 points in 34 regular-season games split between Metallurg Magnitogorsk and Salavat Yulaev Ufa. That is a rate of 0.79 points per game.
The KHL runs a 68-game schedule in 2026-27, opening September 5.
At last season's rate across a full slate, Kuznetsov finishes with about 54 points.
The bonus sits one point past that line. Sibir is not asking him to be better than he was last year, only to be there for every game.
Why availability became the price
Kuznetsov has played 39 and then 34 regular-season games in his two KHL seasons since leaving the NHL. Metallurg placed him on waivers in January, a move agent Shumi Babaev said the player himself asked for.
Head coach Yaroslav Lyuzenkov had said publicly that Sibir needed a center who could be the queen on the board rather than an ordinary piece. Kuznetsov answered by calling himself exactly that on signing day.
The club protected itself anyway, paying a modest base and loading the upside behind games played.
Any team weighing a high-skill, low-availability veteran now has a live template for pricing that risk.
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