{"id":394603,"date":"2026-01-07T01:04:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T01:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/394603\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T01:04:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T01:04:12","slug":"ducks-place-nikita-nesterenko-on-waivers-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/394603\/","title":{"rendered":"Ducks Place Nikita Nesterenko On Waivers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Ducks placed winger\u00a0Nikita Nesterenko<\/a> on waivers Tuesday, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet<\/a> reports.<\/p>\n

Nesterenko, 24, had broken camp with Anaheim but only recently returned to the lineup after a lengthy string of healthy scratches. Since stepping back into the lineup on Dec. 29 against the Sharks, he had an assist and nine hits in four games while averaging 13:19 of ice time. He was a -3 in yesterday\u2019s 7-4 loss to the Capitals.<\/p>\n

The 2019 sixth-round pick had parlayed solid minor-league production and some good call-ups last year into his first one-way contract last offseason, signing a two-year, $1.575MM extension. There were questions about whether he\u2019d carve out an opening night job over waiver-exempt competitors like\u00a0Sam Colangelo<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Tim Washe<\/a>, but in the end, a strong training camp and fears over losing him on waivers led to Nesterenko getting the roster spot.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s made 27 appearances for Anaheim this year, scoring a goal and eight assists while ranking sixth on the team with 50 hits. He was deployed as something of a defensive specialist despite not receiving regular penalty kill deployment, only starting 44.3% of his even-strength shifts in the offensive zone while controlling a team-worst 48.3% of shot attempts.<\/p>\n

Anaheim will be absolved of his $787.5K cap hit for the time being if he clears waivers and is reassigned to AHL San Diego. With nearly $24MM in current cap space, though, that\u2019s not much of a concern.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ducks placed winger\u00a0Nikita Nesterenko on waivers Tuesday, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports. Nesterenko, 24, had broken camp…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[233,5,15908,405,11839],"class_list":{"0":"post-394603","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-anaheim-ducks","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nikita-nesterenko","11":"tag-transactions","12":"tag-waivers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115851130620663087","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394603","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=394603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}