The Seattle Thunderbirds selected forward Nikita Malukhin from Russia in the first round, 50th overall, of the CHL Import Draft on Wednesday.
“Nikita is a skilled forward with good size and he has real potential to be an exciting forward in our league,” said general manager Russ Farwell. “He is excited to be coming to the WHL.”
The 6-foot-2, 201-pound Malukhin played 28 games with Kazan Irbis in the Russia Junior League (MHL) last season and had four goals and two assists for six points.
Every CHL team is allowed a maximum of two non-North American players on their roster each season. These players must be drafted in the CHL Import Draft each summer to be eligible to play.
Teams are permitted to select in the import draft if they have less than two import players on their current roster. Entering the draft, the T-Birds had one import player, right wing Sami Moilanen from Finland, on the roster.
The two-round draft took place online with the order of selection rotating through each of the CHL’s three leagues using an inverse order of final regular season standings within each league from the 2016-17 season.
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