'This Is A Player With Very High Potential': Eric Tulsky On Alexander Nikishin, Timeline For Arrival

The Carolina Hurricanes signed top prospect Alexander Nikishin to a two-year ELC today and will now look to see how quickly they can get him to North America and on the ice.

Hurricanes general manager Eric Tulsky spoke with the media today over Zoom about the negotiation process, next steps and more. Here's what he had to say:

Eric Tulsky

On the visa process: It's a complicated process. We have to get a U.S. visa that has to then be placed into his passport, which happens at an embassy. There's no U.S. embassy in Russia, so he'll have to travel to another country to do that. Then he can come here. We're also working on a Canadian visa in parallel, which also has some complications. All of that is going on. We had hoped to have the U.S. visa by now. It could be any day now. At that point, we'd probably need a day or two to get the visa placed into his passport and get him here. And then it'll be a question of when the Canadian visa comes in and whether or not that will be in time to play in those last two regular season games. ... So we need to have his U.S. visa first and then we can make an appointment at an American embassy to have the visa placed into his passport. So right now, we're waiting to get that visa and then we can make an appointment in whatever country it is that he ends up going to. We'll look at wait times and decide what the best place is to send him and then he'll go to that country, they'll place the visa in his passport and then he can come here.

On how the negotiations worked out with not being able to communicate directly with Nikishin or SKA: So I talked to his North American agents every day for the last few weeks. Every time I talked to them, they had to go back and talk to his Russian agents and the player and then come back to me with sort of their group opinions. It is a complicated negotiation because each of those parties has an opinion and also potentially SKA is involved in negotiating with him at the same time. But ultimately, I'm just dealing directly with the North American agents and trying to come to a deal that they will recommend and then it gets done.

On the player: He has all the tools to be a very effective, all-around defenseman. He can play a very physical game, he is a ferocious hitter, he has a good ability to manage and close gaps, so he can be a really effective defender. Offensively, he sees the ice very well, he can make plays, he has a strong shot. So he really has all the tools to do everything that you want. The question is, how will it all come together? And we won't know that until we see him in our system and at our home arena. ... I think he has an all-around game. He has the ability to play physical, he has the ability to defend hard, he sees the whole ice and can make plays that a lot of defensemen can't make and he has a great shot and can score.

On if the team would be comfortable playing Nikishin in the playoffs: It's really hard to know exactly what's going to happen until we see him. I don't think we can plan it out in detail. Our development staff does a great job of getting guys ready and SKA is actually the one KHL team that plays a style very similar to ours. But it's still going to be a huge transition for any player. He is very well equipped to make the jump, so it might be two practices and he's hit full speed and is ready to go, it might be 20 games before he's comfortable at the NHL pace. So we really won't know until we see what he's like at NHL pace, in our system, with our players and it's hard to say exactly what will happen for him in the lineup until we know where he is.

On the urgency to get the deal done: We're heading into a Stanley Cup run where we think we're real contenders and want to take a run at it and this is a player who can help us. We don't know how much he can help until we see him here, but there's no question that at minimum, he provides us with really strong depth. So that has value and we wanted to get him here and get him in. Maybe he turns out to be more than that, we'll see, but we know that if you go on a long playoff run, you're not getting through it with just six defensemen, so even if all he is is depth, that's still an important thing to have entering the playoffs. We want to put ourselves in a position where we're ready to make that deep run and have the players we need to keep getting to where we want to get.

On the importance of having Russian players already on the team to help his transition: He's heard a lot about our team, for sure, because from [all the former Carolina Hurricanes players on SKA], our players, even one of our development coaches is over there, so he knows a lot about our system by now and a lot about our players and our culture. Ultimately, I think he wants to be in the NHL and wanted to play for us in particular. Sure, it's nice that we have some Russian players who will make it easier when he gets here, but the decision to sign just came down to his drive to be in the best league and perform at the best levels and show that he's ready to compete and excel at the highest levels. Now when he gets here, having players who can help mentor him and help translate for him and help him understand what he needs to do to be successful here, will be helpful for him, but today, it was just about him wanting to be able to compete at the highest level.

On how often Nikishin's name came up in trade talks from other teams: It was constant. I think everybody in the league recognizes that this is a player with very high potential and who can help the team right away. So as you'd expect, whenever they were looking for things they could try to get from us, he was one of the first players we'd get asked about. Obviously we were not interested in doing that. We see the same things they see. We're excited to have him here, but I don't blame them for asking.

On what Nikishin's status will be at the end of his ELC: So this year, he'll burn the first year of the contract. I'm pretty sure he can't get enough games to earn a year of professional service though. So if that does not happen, then at the end of this contract, he will be what's called a 10.2(c) free agent, which is the hockey equivalent of NFL's exclusive rights free agent, where he gets a qualifying offer from us and that binds him to our team and we can negotiate a deal or he can accept the qualifying offer, but he won't be eligible for arbitration nor for signing an offer-sheet. It's really not as uncommon as you might think. A lot of players who burn a year at the end of the contract end up in this situation because they end up using a year of the contract without having the opportunity to play 40 games and earn a year of service. ... In the summer of 2026, his entry-level contract will expire and he will be 10.2(c) free agent.

On tweeting out the late night plane emoji: The plane emoji was just to signal that we were working on getting someone moving. I wanted to build a little late night buzz. A little fun. We're ultimately in the entertainment business and getting people talking and interested has value. I also now have set up a gag where in a couple weeks, I'm going to, at 3 a.m., tweet a bus emoji or a ball of yarn emoji and everybody is going to wonder what that means, so it'll be good times.

On what the conversations with coach Rod Brind'Amour have been like surrounding Nikishin: I've talked to Rod about it and ultimately, it's hard for him to say what he's gonna do until he sees the player. It's part of why we're trying hard to get him here in time to play games, whether that's with the NHL club or maybe, if the visa issues don't work, he'll end up playing a game with our AHL club just so we can see what he looks like in North America, in our system, with players whose skill levels we know. Because I think that'll help build a sense of where he is and where we'd slot him in. In practice, it's very hard to be so good in practice that you'd take someone's job away because it's just not the same. The pace isn't the same, you aren't under the same pressure. So getting that game in, to get him the opportunity is important, but he could earn a depth spot in practice. He absolutely could step in and make us say, 'The first time we have an opening, we need to get this guy in.' Just, taking a job away from someone probably requires getting into a game and showing what he can do.

On his first year as a general manager: I can't say I've made a lot of appointments at embassies in my life. I've also never applied for a Canadian visa so there's been a lot to learn here. I am fortunate to have a staff that is very good at this kind of detail so there's a lot that I'm still figuring out, but know that there are other people on top of and are making sure we're accelerating things as much as we can. And that involves talking to politicians in both countries about their ability to help. So we're pulling every lever we can. So yeah, it's been wild. It's been an interesting process. In terms of how it ranks, I don't know. There's been all kinds of stuff going on. It is hard to compare. I'll probably need to get to maybe August or September when I finally get a week of sleep and can rest and reflect on it and then maybe give you a ranking, but right now, it's been a whirlwind.

On if Nikishin will spend the summer in North America: I have not gotten that far yet. We are trying to get him here and figure it out. We'll see how long his run goes and figure out what he wants to do at the end of that when we get there.

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