{"id":629115,"date":"2026-07-23T05:24:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T05:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/629115\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T05:24:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T05:24:18","slug":"zakhar-bardakov-hopes-to-return-to-nhl-someday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/629115\/","title":{"rendered":"Zakhar Bardakov Hopes To Return to NHL Someday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Following a one-year stint with the Colorado Avalanche, Zakhar Bardakov returned to the KHL for the 2026-27 season, signing a one-year contract with SKA St. Petersburg. The Avs qualified the 25-year-old restricted free agent, ensuring that they keep his rights even after his departure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a recent video interview with a Russian outlet, Bardakov expressed his desire to return to the NHL someday, citing that as the main reason why he chose to only sign for one year in the KHL.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The interview is absolutely worth a watch. Among the topics he discusses, Bardakov credited the Avalanche organization for having such a great season, had great things to say about Nathan MacKinnon as a teammate, and believes he could be a more permanent NHL player someday, whether with the Avs or elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019ll break down more from his interview in the coming days. In the meantime, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Priu8JWaop0&amp;t=23s\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">you can find the video here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following a one-year stint with the Colorado Avalanche, Zakhar Bardakov returned to the KHL for the 2026-27 season,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5102],"tags":[144,62,57,5141,5,4,63,18398],"class_list":["post-629115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida-panthers","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-florida","tag-florida-panthers","tag-floridapanthers","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-panthers","tag-zakhar-bardakov"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116967628099070024","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629115","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=629115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}