Ex-Canucks Forward Sets League on Fire Proving Vancouver and Other NHL Clubs Wrong

The KHL's 2025-26 season is almost two weeks old and there have been plenty of interesting storylines to follow, especially with several former Vancouver Canucks suiting up in the league this year, including goaltender Spencer Martin, who signed with CSKA Moscow this summer.

A few weeks later, Martin was joined by another former Vancouver Canuck as Dutch forward Daniel Sprong put pen-to-paper on a one-year deal with the club, leaving North America for the first time in his career.

Many were wondering how Daniel Sprong would fare in the tough and physical league that is the KHL, but he's done very well thus far, exceeding everyone's expectations and is starting make NHL clubs second guess if they should've signed him this summer.

There's no question that Sprong had offers to remain in North America this summer, but it's unlikely he was guaranteed a spot on a National Hockey League roster, so instead, he headed to Russia to become one of the highest paid players in the league, earning $940,000 USD ($1.292 million CAD | 75.7 million Rubles).

On Tuesday, Sprong's club, CSKA Moscow, took on their intracity rivals, Spartak Moscow, in what turned out to be a solid game, with the latter coming out on top with a 6-5 overtime victory.

In the overtime loss, Sprong proved to his club that they made the right decision to sign him this summer, while also showing NHL clubs what they're missing out on, as the Amsterdam native recorded his first career KHL hat trick.

So far this season, Spring has five points (four goals, one assists) and is a minus-one in five games for CSKA Moscow and depending on how the rest of the 2025-26 campaign go, it wouldn't be a shock if he were to receive NHL offers next summer.

After a brief stint with the Vancouver Canucks, who signed him last summer and then traded him to the Seattle Kraken in November, perhaps they might be interested in bringing him back next year, but it's still too early to say.