- Nicolas Aube-Kubel has agreed to terms with the KHL’s Dinamo Minsk
- The 2022 Stanley Cup winner played six NHL games last season with Minnesota
- Read below for the report, his career numbers and the roster he is joining
Nicolas Aube-Kubel is leaving North America for the first time in his career.
The 30-year-old winger has agreed to terms on a KHL contract with Dinamo Minsk, according to Mikhail Zislis of Sport-Express. Zislis wrote that both sides have already settled the details of the deal and called Aube-Kubel a solid-level addition by current KHL standards. Minsk has not announced anything yet.
Philadelphia drafted Aube-Kubel in the second round in 2014, and he never turned his junior scoring into NHL offense. He finished with 10 goals and 28 points in 102 games as a Flyer, almost all of it in a bottom-six role.
Colorado claimed him off waivers in December 2021, and that became the best stretch of his career. He put up 11 goals and 22 points in 67 games down the stretch, dressed for 14 playoff games, and got his name on the Stanley Cup that June.
He also got his name attached to the most replayed clip of that celebration. Aube-Kubel took the Cup, caught an edge on the ice, and dented the trophy in front of a national audience. Watch the tumble:
Champions have banged that trophy up plenty of times since, and the Panthers put their own marks on it in Florida two years later.
Things thinned out after Colorado. Washington got 60 games and 16 points out of him in 2023-24, while stops in Toronto, Buffalo and New York produced very little. Last season he dressed for six games with Minnesota and picked up two assists, spending the rest of the year in Iowa, where he had 15 goals and 37 points in 62 AHL games.
Dinamo should feel familiar in a hurry. Sam Anas won the KHL scoring title with 89 points last season, Alex Limoges added 73 in 68 games, and Zach Fucale is in the crease. All three were in the Capitals organization at the same time as Aube-Kubel.
Chris Tierney, Ty Smith, Xavier Ouellet, Nicolas Meloche, Brady Lyle and Joshua Brook round out a heavily North American roster. Aube-Kubel is far from alone in going that direction this summer, either, with Boris Katchouk landing in Chelyabinsk earlier this week.
Minsk went 39-19-10 last season and finished second in the Western Conference. They swept Dynamo Moscow in the opening round before Ak Bars Kazan swept them right back. Take a look at Dinamo in preseason action against Shanghai on Thursday:
One kid in Washington is going to take this move harder than anybody. Alex Ovechkin admitted at a 2023 All-Star press conference that his oldest son Sergei’s favorite player was not his dad, but Aube-Kubel. Sergei is going to need a KHL subscription.
