This summer, Jason Newland and I will continue our series looking at potential free agent targets who could be available on July 1.
Today, we’re looking at Andrei Kuzmenko.
Target: Andrei Kuzmenko – LW/RW – 3 Years Experience
Kuzmenko had a very interesting season. He started out on the Calgary Flames and was then dealt to the Philadelphia Flyers, where it looked like he was going to find a nice home alongside Matvei Michkov—until he was traded again to the Los Angeles Kings and ended up being part of their playoff collapse.
There’s a pretty good chance Kuzmenko hits the open market, and if he decides to stay in North America, the Columbus Blue Jackets could be a team that has interest in him. The thing with Kuzmenko is, he tends to do well with Russian players, and the Blue Jackets have both Kirill Marchenko and Dmitry Voronkov, who could help him find his game and become a 50-point player on a cheap contract.
Let’s take a closer look.
Stats
This season, Kuzmenko played in 66 games, scoring 11 goals and adding 26 assists for 37 total points. As mentioned above, he was traded twice during the 2024-25 season but seemed to find his game in LA with the Kings. In his time there, he scored 17 points in 22 games.
In his short NHL career, he has scored 157 points in 219 games across four teams. In his first year with the Vancouver Canucks, he put up 74 points in 81 games—still a career high in both goals and assists.
Previous Salary
Kuzmenko is in the final year of a two-year deal that paid him $5.5 million per season, signed on Jan. 26, 2023 with the Canucks. Contract experts project his next deal to land around the three-year range with a $4.5 million AAV, totaling $13.5 million.
Realistic Chances of a Signing: Warm
Personally, I believe GM Don Waddell will be all over this one. No, Kuzmenko isn’t a physical presence—he’s a goal scorer. And aside from defense, the Blue Jackets need more secondary scoring. They also have Voronkov, who’s coming off a good year and might do even better from playing alongside Kuzmenko.
With the cap going up, $4.5 million isn’t a bad number for a player who can give you 50 points. The term might be the sticking point. If they can get him on a two-year contract, they’ll likely throw the money at him and hope he can rediscover the game he had early on in Vancouver. This could end up being a win-win: Kuzmenko gets back to form, and he might help Voronkov take another step forward. Together, they could form two-thirds of a very solid third line for Columbus next season.
