Vancouver Canucks sign Russian forward, first signing by GM Ryan Johnson<\/p>\n
Published 4:40 pm Tuesday, June 2, 2026<\/p>\n
The Vancouver Canucks have signed Russian forward Ilya Safonov to a one-year, two-way contract.<\/p>\n
This is the first player signing for the newly appointed Canucks general manager, Ryan Johnson, who believes the 25-year-old can compete at the NHL level.<\/p>\n
\u201cIlya had a solid year in Russia and a strong playoff. We like his size and player profile, and he will be given every opportunity to compete for a spot at training camp,\u201d said Johnson following the signing.<\/p>\n
Safonov played 68 games with Ak Bars Kazan of the KHL during the 2025-26 season, tallying 33 points, including 16 goals and 43 penalty minutes.<\/p>\n
During post-season play, Safonov registered nine points (two goals, seven assists) in 20 games en route to the Gagarin Cup Final.<\/p>\n
The 6\u20194\u201d Moscow native has appeared in 331 KHL games and has recorded 128 points, 129 penalty minutes and carries a +68 on ice rating.<\/p>\n
Safonov has represented his country on the international stage, including the 2021 World Junior Hockey Championships.<\/p>\n
Safonov was selected by the Chicago Blackhawks 172nd overall in the 2021 NHL Entry Draft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vancouver Canucks sign Russian forward, first signing by GM Ryan Johnson Published 4:40 pm Tuesday, June 2, 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5128],"tags":[1020,894,5,4,893,27,5313],"class_list":["post-589972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver-canucks","tag-british-columbia","tag-canucks","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-vancouver","tag-vancouver-canucks","tag-vancouvercanucks"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116684878212228563","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589972","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=589972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}