5 fun facts about Canucks newest signing Andrei Kuzmenko

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.

#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.

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