Every year players playing overseas look to take their talents to North America and NHL during the offseason. Most of the time, these players are a bit of late bloomers looking to make the jump after a few successful seasons in the KHL, Liiga, SHL, etc. While not all of them will make an immediate impact at the NHL level, for teams looking to bolster their depth it’s worth the risk.
Over the past couple of seasons, we’ve seen the Carolina Hurricanes sign guys like Derek Ryan, Michael Fora, and Michal Cajkovsky with varying levels of success, with Ryan being the only player to have any impact at the NHL level.