{"id":255350,"date":"2025-10-20T10:18:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T10:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/255350\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T10:18:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T10:18:13","slug":"ben-harpur-signs-in-khl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/255350\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Harpur Signs In KHL"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Veteran defenseman\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/h\/harpube01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-10-19_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Ben Harpur<\/a>\u00a0has signed with the Shanghai Dragons of the Kontinental Hockey League for the remainder of the season, per <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.championat.com\/hockey\/news-6208238-shanhaj-dregons-podpisal-kontrakt-s-byvshim-zaschitnikom-nhl-benom-harpurom.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Anton Panchenko of Championat<\/a>. Harpur had hoped to land an NHL deal for this year and<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.prohockeyrumors.com\/2025\/10\/panthers-release-ben-harpur-from-pto.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> signed a professional tryout with the Panthers<\/a>, but was released at the beginning of the month and wasn\u2019t invited to their AHL camp, either.<\/p>\n<p>Harpur, 30, has nearly 200 NHL games to his name but hasn\u2019t logged any action since 2022-23 with the Rangers. He remained in New York\u2019s organization for the following two seasons but played only for their AHL affiliate in Hartford. Injuries limited the 6\u20196\u2033 lefty to just 36 total appearances in the minors from 2023-25, too.<\/p>\n<p>An NHL return was an understandable long shot as a result, but a minor-league contract may have been within reach. Instead, the Ontario-born defender heads overseas for the first time in his 11-year pro career. He\u2019ll do in St. Petersburg, Russia, for the China-based Dragons, who have longtime NHL bench boss <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/g\/gallage01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-10-19_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Gerard Gallant<\/a>\u00a0at the helm and, with Harpur now in tow, carry nearly 2,000 games of combined NHL experience on their roster after rebranding from their former Kunlun Red Star identity last offseason. Harpur joins some familiar faces in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/l\/labanke01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-10-19_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Kevin Labanc<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/b\/burmial01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-10-19_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Alexander Burmistrov<\/a>, and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/spoonry01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-10-19_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Ryan Spooner<\/a>, among others. Gallant also oversaw Harpur\u2019s most recent NHL games over two years ago.<\/p>\n<p>Harpur joins a Dragons club that is quickly on the rise. The franchise never finished above .500 in their days as Kunlun Red Star, which began play back in 2016, but is off to a 9-3-3 start under Gallant and ranks second in the KHL\u2019s Western Conference.<\/p>\n<p>A fourth-round pick by the Senators in 2013, Harpur has logged time at the game\u2019s top level with them, the Rangers, and the Predators. Topping out as a semi-reliable No. 7, the big stay-at-home rearguard has a career 2-19\u201321 scoring line with a -42 rating while averaging 15:38 of ice time per game. He also has 69 points and a -12 rating in 229 career AHL appearances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Veteran defenseman\u00a0Ben Harpur\u00a0has signed with the Shanghai Dragons of the Kontinental Hockey League for the remainder of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[9208,5,2359,405],"class_list":{"0":"post-255350","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-ben-harpur","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-khl","11":"tag-transactions"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115405987644570592","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}