The former Philadelphia Flyers and Lehigh Valley Phantoms forward is heading overseas to play hockey.
In a move that won’t hurt the Philadelphia Flyers moving forward in the offseason, forward Corban Knight has signed a one-year deal with the Barys Nur-Sultan in the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL). Knight seemingly thought that he wouldn’t find a suitable enough contract in the NHL or AHL and opted to play overseas instead.
The 28-year-old centerman posted a mere four points (1 Goal, 3 Assists) in 28 games with the Flyers last year after going on Injured Reserve due to an upper body injury that he suffered in October of 2018. It was glaringly obvious why he found himself out of the NHL for two years prior to this past season, as he never did anything of note while with the Flyers. He also averaged just over nine minutes of Time on Ice through his four-year NHL tenure, showing coaches never really trusted him to do much, either.
Where Knight did have success, though, was at the AHL level. He scored ten points in eight games with the Phantoms during his brief stint with the team last year and finished his three-year career netting 87 points in 138 contests in Lehigh Valley. The former North Dakota product kept just over a half a point-per-game pace through his entire AHL career, providing serviceable efforts to AHL squads.
The Flyers and Phantoms, for that matter, likely won’t lose sleep over Knight’s departure. Philadelphia could find a better player to fill his fourth line role and Lehigh Valley has a plethora of young talent coming in for the 2019-20 campaign, giving each team very little leeway for Knight’s services.
Knight seemed like a nice guy during interviews, so I wish him the best over in Russia. He just wasn’t an NHL caliber player, point blank.