5 fun facts about Canucks newest signing Andrei Kuzmenko

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The Vancouver Canucks offseason is well underway.

They still have plenty of things to do. Will J.T. Miller or Brock Boeser be Canucks next season? How will they find right-handed defencemen? Who will the Canucks take with the 15th overall pick?

Those are questions that will be answered in the coming weeks and months.

However, the Canucks already made a notable move. On Monday morning, it was announced they were going to sign highly touted KHL player Andrei Kuzmenko. The signing won’t be made official until July 13 but Kuzmenko is a Canuck and will play for them next season.

In the KHL, Kuzmenko was a very good playmaker and a solid skater and he has to translate his game from the KHL to the NHL which is not an easy task. Of course, there is no guarantee that Kuzmenko can put up the same number of points with the Canucks as he did in the KHL next season. He has to prove he can keep up with the speed and skill of the NHL.

With Kuzmenko now in the fold, here are five fun facts about the Canucks’ newest signing.

#1: Kuzmenko likes to have water with lemons and Canucks management joked about it

Kuzmenko’s agent Dan Milstein talked about his client signing with Vancouver on Tuesday’s edition of Donnie and Dhali: The Team on CHEK TV.

Milstein told a funny story that happened during the 26-year-old’s meetings with the Canucks in Vancouver. Apparently, it involved lemons.

“Last Friday, we go in to meet with (Canucks General Manager) Patrik (Allvin),” said Milstein. “So we walk in and one of Patrik’s associates asks what we wanted to drink. So Andrei goes like ‘can I please have water with lemon’ and so everyone looked at Andrei and including myself. I’m like ‘dude, this is Canada, they don’t have fresh lemons in the GM’s office’ and so everyone started laughing, we were cracking up, having a good time, making fun of Andrei a little bit. So we leave for lunch and go around town and Andrei looks at me and says ‘let’s go to the store and buy some lemons, it will be a good joke.’ So we go to a local store and buy five lemons. We were going to the 5:00 meeting (with Allvin and Canucks management) and Andrei is proudly bringing in the bag of lemons to basically counter joke and we walk in and there is a huge bowl of lemons waiting for Andrei.”

Maybe the lemons were another reason why Kuzmenko decided to choose Vancouver. He probably liked it better than Joeys which was the restaurant the Oilers took him to in Edmonton. There are many benefits to water with lemon. Benefits include a healthy dose of Vitamin C, preventing kidney stones and providing a boost of potassium.

It was good to see Kuzmenko appreciate the sense of humour from the Canucks management. It looks like he will get all the lemons he wants now. When life gives you lemons, maybe you should just play along with the joke I guess.

SAINT PETERSBURG, RUSSIA – 2022/03/20: SKA Hockey Club player, Andrei Kuzmenko (No.96) seen in action during the Kontinental Hockey League, Gagarin Cup, KHL 2021/22 between SKA Saint Petersburg and Spartak Moscow at the Ice Sports Palace.(Final score; SKA Saint Petersburg 2:1 Spartak Moscow). (Photo by Maksim Konstantinov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) /

#2: He was teammates with one of the NHL’s best goaltenders

Kuzmenko played three seasons with Vasily Podkolzin. The two will get reacquainted in the fall.

But he also was a teammate of one of the NHL’s best goaltenders. That was Igor Shesterkin who is the 2021-22 winner of the Vezina Trophy as the league’s best goaltender.

Kuzmenko was teammates with Shesterkin in the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons. Together they helped SKA finish first in the Bobrov Division in both seasons but they lost in the conference finals to division rivals CSKA Moscow. (Kuzmenko’s last two seasons in the KHL also ended in conference final defeats to CSKA Moscow.)

Kuzmenko will be playing hockey with Shesterkin again but this time as opponents.

#3 He is just the 19th Russian to play for the Canucks

Numerous Russians have worn the Canucks jersey over the years. Kuzmenko will just be the 19th Russian to don the Canucks colours.

The team has an up and down history with Russians. Pavel Bure was the Canucks first superstar and his number 10 is up in the rafters. Alexander Mogilny played five seasons in Vancouver and his first was a 55-goal, 107-point campaign. But many Russian players did not pan out in Vancouver including Sergei Shirokov and Nikolay Goldobin.

It’s also kind of crazy that Podkolzin is already tied for sixth in games played by a Russian Canuck.

Kuzmenko will become just the 19th Russian player to play for the #Canucks pic.twitter.com/OkTfufjiUc
— Rob Williams (@RobTheHockeyGuy) June 20, 2022

Where will Kuzmenko land on the above list? We shall see.

SAINT PETERSBURG, RUSSIA – 2022/03/02: SKA Hockey Club players, Andrei Kuzmenko (No.96) and Dinamo Minsk Hockey Club players Alexei Kolosov (No.35) in action during the Kontinental Hockey League, Gagarin Cup, KHL 2021/22 between SKA Saint Petersburg and Dinamo Minsk at the Ice Sports Palace.(Final score; SKA Saint Petersburg 8:3 Dinamo Minsk). (Photo by Maksim Konstantinov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) /

#4: Surfing is apparently one of his hobbies

Surfing is a hobby that is enjoyed by many around the world and it looks like Kuzmenko enjoys it too.

On Tuesday, he posted a video of himself surfing on what looks like the Moskva river in Moscow on his Instagram story.

Kuzmenko celebrating his new #Canucks contract in style by the looks of it pic.twitter.com/jojd3MDgQC
— Rob Williams (@RobTheHockeyGuy) June 21, 2022

It looks like he decided to celebrate his signing with the Canucks in style. It also looks like he has a fun personality and that would be great to have in the locker room.

#5: His hometown is the coldest city on Earth

A Reddit user by the name of u/SultanOfSwerve on R/Canucks pointed this one out first.

Kuzmenko was born in Yakutsk. It is a city in Northeastern Russia and has a population of about 332,000. It is the capital city of the Sakha Republic. Yakutsk is also the coldest city in the world.

In Yakutsk, temperatures can go as low as -40 degrees Celsius to -50 degrees Celsius or even lower in the winter. Imagine living in that weather. Well, Kuzmenko did.

The mild climate of Vancouver will be a nice change compared to Yakutsk. Vancouver winters will probably be barbeque weather for him. When it does snow in Vancouver, it becomes chaos and Kuzmenko will probably be laughing from his apartment at the people struggling to commute in the snow as he dealt with snow at crazy temperatures growing up.

Here is a very interesting video on what life is like in Kuzmenko’s very cold hometown.

Warmer weather, new teammates and a new league will be waiting for Kuzmenko when he shows up for Canucks training camp in September.

Next. 6 Russian UFA Targets for the Canucks. dark

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