Completed Trade Between the Vancouver Canucks & Calgary Flames Proves Rick Tocchet Was Wrong About Winger

Andrei Kuzmenko has been collecting plenty of Air Miles this season following his trade to the Philadelphia Flyers from Calgary in January and then was dealt once again, just over a month later, to the Los Angeles Kings.

At the time of the trade out of Philadelphia, the Flyers were only five points back of Ottawa Senators for the second wild card spot in the Eastern Conference, so it was a bit of a puzzling move.

Kuzmenko's time with the Los Angeles Kings started out pretty slow, with no points in his first seven games, but in his last six, the Yakutsk, Russia native has been on a tear.

Over the last six game, Kuzmenko has registered three goals and seven points - three of those points came during an 8-1 drubbing of their state rivals, the San Jose Sharks.

The 29-year-old is now up to 27 points (nine goals, 18 assists) in 57 games between Calgary, Philadelphia and now, Los Angeles, who are second in the Pacific Division entering action on Tuesday.

If Andrei Kuzmenko is able to finish the season strong and produce in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, he could garner plenty of attention when he hits the open market as an unrestricted free agent on July 1st.

It's probably unlikely that Kuzmenko will land another deal that'll pay him $5.5 million annually, just based on his drop in production since his first season in Vancouver, but he could be a valuable middle-six option at around $3.5-$4 million AAV.

While Kuzmenko might not have had a great ending in Vancouver after being a healthy scratch on multiple occasions and not fitting well into Rick Tocchet's system, it'll be interesting to see if Patrik Allvin tries to bring him back this summer, if they part ways with their head coach.