- CSKA Moscow loaned Blue Jackets first-rounder Pyotr Andreyanov to HK Sochi for the 2026-27 KHL season
- Columbus cannot sign the 20th overall pick from 2025 until his Russian contract runs out
- Read below for what Sochi’s general manager said about the 19-year-old goalie
Columbus drafted Pyotr Andreyanov 20th overall in 2025 and has not been able to sign him since. He just changed teams again, and the Blue Jackets had no say in that one either.
CSKA Moscow loaned the 19-year-old goalie to HK Sochi for the 2026-27 season, a move that hit the KHL transaction wire Thursday, days before the Russian league opens play. Sochi’s welcome graphic laid out the terms plainly: goaltender, on loan through the end of the season.
The reason Columbus is a spectator here traces back to the week after the draft. Andreyanov signed a five-year deal with CSKA in July 2025 that runs through 2029-30, as Aaron Portzline of The Athletic reported at the time. The agreement carries an NHL release clause after the fourth season.
So CSKA made this call, not the Blue Jackets. And CSKA had a good reason to make it.
Andreyanov has never played a KHL game. Dmitri Gamzin owns the crease in Moscow after going 22-10-6 with a .938 save percentage and a 1.49 goals-against average last season, and the 23-year-old Islanders draft pick has two years left on his deal.
Alexander Samonov, a 31-year-old former KHL All-Star, is the No. 2 there. Andreyanov was not going to see that net.
Sochi general manager Alexei Babintsev explained what his club wants out of the arrangement in a statement posted by the team, translated and shared by CBJProspects:
“We see enormous potential in Pyotr and believe that he is already ready today to take a serious step forward. The loan will allow Pyotr to gain the necessary game practice, adapt more quickly to the demands of adult hockey, and continue his professional growth. This is a decision from which all parties benefit. But the main thing is that the young goalkeeper gets a chance in the KHL. Now everything depends on him.”
His junior work is why Columbus spent a first-round pick on a goalie in the first place. Andreyanov went 45-22-9 with a .928 save percentage across three MHL seasons for Krasnaya Armiya, and his draft year stood apart from the rest: 23-6-6, a 1.75 goals-against average and a .942 in 37 games, plus two Goaltender of the Month awards and an All-Star selection.
NHL Central Scouting had him ranked as the top international goalie in that class.
Last season brought the first real test. The MHL numbers came back to earth at a 2.59 goals-against average and a .919, and he went 4-8-0 with a .918 across 13 games in the VHL with Zvezda Moskva.
Russian clubs have not always been this accommodating about giving an NHL team something to watch. Dynamo Moscow tried to send Ivan Ryabkin out on a KHL loan last month and the request went nowhere.
Columbus has kept busy in net at the NHL level in the meantime, adding Connor Ingram earlier this summer.
The goalie turns 20 in January, and the earliest he can leave for North America is 2029. Sochi’s crease is where the Blue Jackets find out what they drafted.
