Donnie and Dhali’s Rick Dhaliwal is reporting that Nikita Tryamkin has signed a 2-year deal with Avtomobilist Ekaterinburg of the KHL.

The 26-year-old defenceman was drafted in the third round in 2014 by the Vancouver Canucks and has 11 points in 79 games with the club.

Tryamkin last played with the Canucks in 2017. That offseason, Tryamkin announced he would be leaving Vancouver to go back to Russia.

Last offseason, the Canucks tried to work out a deal for him to make a return to the Canucks, but given the uncertainty of the COVID-19 world at the time, couldn’t agree on a number.

This time around, it appears that Tryamkin’s camp wanted to avoid a similar situation.

“I told the Canucks what it would take on both a 1 or 2 year term and they told me what they could guarantee today, and the gap was just too wide for Nikita,” Tryamkin’s agent Todd Diamond told Dhaliwal. “Nikita didn’t want to wait and be in a situation like last summer where the team didn’t act and the KHL Club had nearly exhausted its budget.”

At the end of Tryamkin’s new KHL deal, the Canucks will no longer have his NHL rights and he will be free to sign anywhere he chooses.