The start of the 2026-27 season is rapidly approaching and while the Stanley Cup Champion Carolina Hurricanes look ready for another run at the crown, there's one piece of business still left unfinished.

Russian blueliner Alexander Nikishin is the Hurricanes' last player without a deal for the upcoming season and it hasn't seemed like there's really been much progress on that front.

His name has been out there plenty in the rumor mill, with reports stating that he's looking for north of $8 million per year and that the Canes have shopped him around plenty as well.

But with training camp just a week away, will the time crunch force someone to give?

And what will a new contract even look like for the Russian defenseman?

Nikishin was just on the outside of the league's top-50 most productive defensemen, registering 33 points in 81 games in his rookie year, however, he was in the top-25 in terms of goal scoring, having found the back of the net 11 times.

That's substantial production and better than a plethora of guys that wound up with significant contracts this summer.

However, he's also a 24-year-old rookie and so the question is, how much more room does he have to grow?

Obviously he had trouble adjusting to a lot of factors given the fact that he was playing in North American and a new league for the first time in his career, as well as not speaking the language fully. 

So from that standpoint there is the potential for him to take another step, but the fact remains that he struggled a bit defensively, especially with the way the Hurricanes play, and so it's a question of if the organization thinks he's capable of taking a big step.

AFP Analytics does projections for pending free agents and their data projects both a long and short term deal for players.

For Nikishin, AFP projects him at both a six-year, $38.641 million ($6.44 AAV) deal or a two-year, $7.43 million ($3.715 AAV) deal.

In my opinion both of those seem fairly low for the Russian blueliner, but I can also see why the analytics wouldn't be too much in Nikishin's favor.

Despite solid production, Nikishin wasn't much of a play driver for Carolina according to the underlying numbers and he had his fair share of struggles defensively too.

And while he was quite productive in the regular season, Nikishin struggled to put up points in the playoffs.

In addition, Nikishin has virtually no leverage in the current negotiations.

On top of only having one year of NHL experience under his belt, he's also a 10.2(c) restricted free agent, meaning that he can't be offer sheeted nor could he file for arbitration.

The Hurricanes hold all the cards in the negotiations and the only potential option Nikishin has is to sit out, which is very rare to see in today's game.

However, while he and the team have continued to go back and forth in negotiations, other players have landed deals that have more than likely only pushed Nikishin's ask even higher.

If we look at players in Nikishin's cohort (defensemen around the age of 24 who signed new deals) ones that jump out as comparables include:

• Zeev Buium [20] - Eight-year, $75.04 million ($9.38 AAV)
• Jamie Drysdale [24] - Four-year, $26 million ($6.5 AAV)
• Simon Nemec [22] - Five-year, $36.25 million ($7.25 AAV)
• Pavel Mintyukov [22] - Five-year, $36 million ($7.2 AAV)
• Bowen Byram [25] - Six-year, $75 million ($12.5 AAV)
• Brandt Clarke [23] - Five-year, $37 million ($7.4 AAV)

Of those players, only Byram (42 points) and Clarke (40) outproduced Nikishin.

Beyond them, other potential comparables in his cohort could include some players who signed deals last year, but the majority of them do play larger roles than Nikishin.

• Philip Broberg [24] - Six-year, $48 million ($8 AAV)
• JJ Moser [25] - Eight-year, $54 million ($6.75 AAV)
• Thomas Harley [24] - Eight-year, $84.7 million ($10.587 AAV)
• Jackson LaCombe [24] - Eight-year, $72 million ($9 AAV)
• Luke Hughes [22] - Seven-year, $63 million ($9 AAV)

At the end of the day, Nikishin's price is more than likely going to end up at least somewhere above $7 million based on the market.

Carolina has just over $8 million in cap space according to PuckPedia, so they can fit him into the equation, but would the team really want to make him potentially their highest paid defenseman?

And if he stays, is it going to be a bridge or a long-term deal?

Carolina isn't a team that likes to take expensive risks and Nikishin definitely presents himself as one, especially at the price tag he's seemingly asking for.

There's also the case of, does Nikishin want to commit long-term to Carolina?

Coming from the KHL, the Russian defenseman was a 30-minute a night, all situations player. He hasn't gotten the opportunity to be that in Raleigh and there still isn't really a path for him to become that either.

The Hurricanes have a lot of options on the blueline currently too, bringing in Mike Reilly, Pierre-Olivier Joseph and Juuso Valimaki, while also having guys like Charles Alexis Legault and Joel Nystrom, all of whom could be options in that third-pairing role, so they have the insurance should this drag out through training camp.

And again, the Hurricanes don't have to budge.

It's a difficult situation and one that will be interesting to see how it ultimately resolves.

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