At 40 years young, Pavel Datsyuk is producing just under a point per game at the KHL level. With 28 points in 32 games with St. Petersburg SKA, the "Magic Man" is looking like he could still be a serviceable player if he wanted to return to the National Hockey League one day.
On Tuesday night, Bob McKenzie weighed in on some chatter he's heard in the NHL community that Datsyuk could jump back overseas to North America for the 2019/20 NHL season.
Datsyuk is technically property of the Arizona Coyotes after the Red Wings offloaded his contract to the desert during the 2016 NHL Entry Draft. In the deal, the Red Wings and Coyotes swapped first-round picks (16th overall used to Jakob Chychrun and 20th overall used to select Dennis Cholowski) while adding Joe Vitale and a second-round pick (53rd overall used to select Filip Hronek). In the summer of 2016, Datsyuk announced he'd be returning to his homeland where he's currently in his third season with SKA.
Arizona will lose Datsyuk’s rights at the end of this season, meaning he'll be free to sign with any NHL come July 1st.
