Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen reports that Red Wings prospect and SKA St. Petersburg forward Dmitri Buchelnikov might be loaned out to another KHL club for the purposes of helping SKA get under the KHL’s salary cap:
Although neither side is currently willing to confirm this on the record, there are reports in the Russian media that Detroit Red Wings prospect Dmitri Buchelnikov will be going on loan this season from SKA St. Petersburg to KHL rival HC Sochi.
“They say that there is already an agreement that Dmitri Buchelnikov will play for Sochi,” special correspondant Alexey Shevchenko reported on Russian website SportExpress.ru. “There is no official information, therefore the parties do not confirm or deny the rumors.”
SKA is currently 172 million rubles over the KHL’s hard salary cap of 90 million rubles, meaning some players must depart prior to the launch of the regular season. One of those is expected to be Buchelnikov.
Continued; put bluntly, SKA is one of the KHL’s flagship franchises, and HK Sochi is something of a “building” expansion team (still), so the “loan” would benefit both teams.
