Zubov looking for a trade after another AHL demotion

PeterR — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 01:49:50 -0000

Ottawa Senators prospect Ilya Zubov, after being assigned to the AHL's Binghamton Senators for the third consecutive season, is pulling an Alexei Kaigorodov Alexander Nikulin Dany Heatley in requesting a trade out of dissatisfaction with his role on the team, according to Michael Sharp's B-Sens blog.

"I'm not very happy about it, it's not what I want. Both me and the Ottawa team [talked] and I might get traded soon."
--Zubov, on being demoted to Binghamton, courtesy Fox 40 News

Difference between Zubov and Heatley, though, is that Heatley was given everything he asked for--contract term, money, job security, leadership role--but still wasn't happy. Although Zubov has no one to blame for his situation but himself (he's been outplayed on the roster by Zack Smith, Ryan Shannon, Nick Foligno, Peter Regin, and possibly more), he does deserve an opportunity to play for another organization if it means a shot at the NHL.

And Zubov's far from the first Senators prospect to demand a trade in similar fashion.

(Read more... )

In November of last season, SputNik (Alexander Nikulin) refused to report to Binghamton after his demotion, and was about to head to the KHL in Russia before being traded to the Phoenix Coyotes in return for defenceman Drew Fata in November of 2008.

Earlier that year, Brad Isbister (hardly a prospect, but whatever) exercised an out-clause built into his two-way contract with the Senators on being demoted to the AHL, and took an offer from a European squad to play there.

The season before, after playing six games in Ottawa before being sent to Binghamton, Kaigorodov left the team and went to Russia out of disappointment. In January of 2007, he was traded to--you guessed it--Phoenix, in exchange for Mike Comrie.

Zubov seemed like he was different than Nikulin or Kaigorodov, and for his first two seasons in Bingo he seemed to say all the right things. Then again, Nikulin seemed like a committed player when he kept a blog of his experiences in the AHL. Say this about Zubov, he's asked to be traded, but has not yet threatened to go to Russia--even though he could quite possibly earn hundreds of thousands of dollars if he returned to play in the Kontinental Hockey League. That could still happen, and even if it does, I wouldn't blame Zubov for doing so.

If he's traded, who's got their money on Phoenix as the trading partner?

Coyotes Extend Qualifying Offers to a Dozen Players

OdinMercer — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:07:31 -0000

More photos » by Paul Connors - AP

Phoenix Coyotes left winger Scottie Upshall, right, was given a qualifying offer on Tuesday.

Browse more photos »

The Coyotes today extended qualifying offers to twelve Restricted Free Agents ahead of the July 1st start of free agency. Details of the offer sheets have not yet been released, but here are the players we made offers to:

Scottie Upshall: Yay! No way we let him go after how he performed for us after the trade from Philly.

Keith Yandle: No question he would be staying with how weak we are on D.

Enver Lisin: Kept the speedster around. We really need to work on his defensive skill set, but the kid can flat out fly.

Daniel Winnik: Solid 3rd line center but needs to pick up his game to what it was a couple seasons back if he wants to stay in Phoenix instead of riding the bus.

Nigel Dawes: From what I heard from the team they hadn't been all that impressed with him, but maybe this is just to keep an asset rather than getting noting for him.

Dave Spina: A locally grown kid who could finally be the first native Arizonan to play in the NHL. The fans here love him and he's a solid guy.

Josh Tordjman: He can compete with Al Montoya for either the Starting spot in San Antonio or possibly the backup spot if we can't find someone to backup Bryzgalov.

Alexander Nikulin: Protecting an asset as I think we've already heard rumors of him going to the KHL.

Stefan Meyer, Shaun Hushka, Sami Lepisto: The new guys we aquired in the Reinprecht deal and trading picks at the draft.

The Coyotes did not extend qualifying offers to the following restricted free agents:

Alex Bourret, Garth Murray and Joakim Lindstrom.

SB Nation - Alexander Nikulin

Zubov looking for a trade after another AHL demotion

Coyotes Extend Qualifying Offers to a Dozen Players