- Pending UFA defenseman Daniil Miromanov is expected to sign with SKA Saint Petersburg of the KHL next season
- The 28-year-old Russian spent most of 2025-26 with the AHL Wranglers after clearing waivers in late October
- Read below for the full reporting and a look back at how Miromanov’s NHL run wrapped up
Daniil Miromanov is on his way back to Russia.
Sport-Express reporter Fyodor Nosov reported Saturday that the pending unrestricted free agent defenseman is expected to sign with SKA Saint Petersburg of the KHL for next season, per Pro Hockey Rumors. The news lines up with reporting from Artur Khairullin in late April that pegged SKA as the leading suitor for the 28-year-old once his Calgary Flames contract runs out.
Miromanov hit the waiver wire just six games into the Flames’ 2025-26 season:
He cleared, got reassigned to the AHL Wranglers, and outside of one brief recall in November, never poked his head back into the Flames lineup.
Watch Miromanov speaking after a Wranglers game later that month:
Things picked up in the AHL. The right-shot defender put up 11 goals and 27 assists in 66 games for Calgary’s farm club, finally getting top-pair minutes after years of bouncing between seventh-defender duty and the press box.
Originally signed by Vegas as an undrafted free agent in 2021, Miromanov reached the NHL in parts of three seasons with the Golden Knights before getting dealt to Calgary in March 2024 as part of the Noah Hanifin return. His Flames stretch produced 23 points and 110 blocked shots across 94 career NHL appearances, mostly in a depth role.
Calgary handed him a two-year extension just months after acquiring him:
Heading back to Russia fits from a playing-time angle. SKA would hand him a real role and a paycheck close to home in a way another minimum-salary NHL deal probably wouldn’t, and he’s no stranger to the league after suiting up briefly with SKA-Neva and Sochi earlier in his career.
Russian-NHL traffic cuts both ways. The Predators recently signed KHL standout Vitali Pinchuk to an entry-level deal heading the opposite direction.
The Flames keep thinning out their pending UFA defense group. The blueline rebuild rolls on without the player they got back in the Hanifin deal.
