It seems as if the Montreal Canadiens are in on many European free agents these days. Alexey Marchenko‘s name has been tied to the Habs for some time now, and the fact that it’s now confirmed he will hit the open market brings the possibility closer to reality.
Marchenko has been playing with CSKA Moscow for the last three seasons after forgoing the NHL for the KHL. Similarly to his time in the minors with the Grand Rapids Griffins before getting the initial call-up, the defenceman saw a decent amount of minutes with CSKA. He played averaged at least 18:40 in his three seasons (18:42, 18:43 and 18:59), which was bumped up to 20 minutes in the playoffs (21:24, 20:26 and 21:01).