The Vancouver Canucks and forward Ilya Mikheyev have agreed to a four-year contract that averages $4.75 million per season, his agent, Dan Milstein, announced Wednesday.
Offense was the name of the game for the Toronto Maple Leafs last season, and while Mikheyev didn't score at a clip similar to that of teammates Auston Matthews or Mitchell Marner, he did author an impressive season in a contract year.
Toronto is quite deep up front, so he didn't play a full season, but Mikheyev settled for 21 goals and 32 points in 54 games, averaging 15 minutes, 15 seconds on the ice.
In the playoffs, he continued his surge, playing in all seven games of a first-round loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning, scoring twice and finishing with four points. He showed some spunk against the Lightning, as well, garnering six minutes in penalties, and coach Sheldon Keefe rewarded him with an average of 16:45 time on ice.
It indeed was a career season for a player who combined for 15 goals in his first two years in the NHL, and the 2022-23 campaign could go a long way toward showing if his recent success was simply a byproduct of Toronto's high-octane offense or if Mikheyev can be a consistent power forward for years to come.