With No ‘Guarantees,’ Ponomarev Leaving Penguins for KHL

BUFFALO — The Pittsburgh Penguins do not expect Russian forward Vasily Ponomarev back with the organization next season.

Pittsburgh Hockey Now spoke with Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas Friday in an unscheduled conversation with one other outlet at the NHL Scouting Combine in Buffalo.

There were initial reports and retractions, but Dubas confirmed that the Penguins couldn’t give Ponomarev a guarantee to play in the NHL next season, and the Moscow native is taking action.

It should be noted that Dubas hedged a little bit about Ponomarev’s final destination, but he believes Ponomarev is KHL-bound. In keeping with Ponomarev’s somewhat mercurial nature, the player recently changed agents, at least once, and conducted his own negotiations.

“My understanding is yes (he will leave). He switched agents once or twice (recently), and he’s negotiating his own deal over there,” said Dubas. “He’s young, we’ll continue watching him over there. We weren’t going to promise him anything. He got a lot of opportunities with us, and he was injured for part of the other times when we would have called him up. I’ll just keep watching him. It is what it is. That’s the business.”

On Wednesday, a pair of KHL teams executed a trade, and Ponomarev will play for Omsk.

Ponomarev, 23, was one of the centerpieces of the Penguins’ return in the Jake Guentzel trade, along with a second-round pick and winger Ville Koivunen. While Koivunen consistently improved throughout the season in the AHL, culminating in his attention-grabbing nine-game stint with the Penguins in the NHL, Ponomarev did little with his NHL opportunities. He played in seven NHL games without a point.

Conversely, Koivunen had seven assists in eight games.

In 55 AHL games this season, Ponomarev primarily played center–a position in which the organization is already thin–and scored 15 goals with 41 points.

Dubas indicated the Penguins will retain his rights should Ponomarev choose to return to North America.