Forward Alex Galchenyuk got into trouble. The Belarusian-American, who signed a minimum two-way contract with the Arizona on July 1, was arrested July 9 on a variety of charges, including “assault on private property, disorderly conduct, insubordination, resisting arrest , threats or intimidation”. ” The hockey player was sent to prison last Sunday, the next morning Galchenyuk was released on bail. A preliminary court hearing is scheduled for August 11, but the Coyotes have already put Alex on a waiver draft unconditional to terminate your contract.
Everything indicates that the player’s career in North America is over. For several years now, Galchenyuk has not reached the level of the NHL in terms of game parameters, and now a reputational scandal will surely close the way for him in any league. And we still have to wait for the verdict.
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But a dozen years ago, Galchenyuk was considered one of the most talented young hockey players in the United States. The son of Belarusian Alexander Galchenyuk, a point guard player for Dynamo Moscow in the last years of the USSR championships, was born in 1994 in Milwaukee, where his father took his first steps in a career abroad as part of the local Admirals of the IHL. Galchenyuk Jr. showed talent from a very young age, proving famous in the Ontario Junior League in Sarnia, where his father was working as a coach at the time, and in 2012, Montreal took Alex with the third pick in the draft. Only Nail Yakupov and Ryan Murray were taller; yes, this is one of the most unsuccessful drafts in league history.
However, Galchenyuk managed to immediately gain a foothold in the Canadians, although he did not show statistics in accordance with numerous expectations. Alex’s best result was 56 points in the 2015/2016 season, too little to count on any kind of career and financial takeoff. However, in 2017, Galchenyuk signed a three-year deal with Montreal for $14.7 million, but exactly one year later, the Khabs traded the team’s No. 2 scorer to Arizona for Max Domi.
This trade caused at least some bewilderment among a significant portion of Montreal fans, but the Canadian club certainly had non-game reasons for settling on a deal. The fact is that back in October 2017, the story came to light that during his performances in Montreal, Galchenyuk went through detoxification twice for drug or alcohol addiction problems. This was stated by the former coach of the Canadiens, Mario Tremblay, who, however, worked at the club long before Galchenyuk was selected in the draft.
Alex Galchenyuk
Photo: David Zalubowski/AP/TASS
Alex declined to answer a reporter’s question about the situation, with Montreal general manager Bergevin saying, “What I can tell you is that it’s been like that in the NHL for years. That’s the way it was when I played. You have a number confidential that you can call during the season. This is strictly confidential. There can be a guy, 10 guys, no guys, it’s confidential.”
Be that as it may, less than a year after these words from Berzhevin, Galchenyuk was traded to Arizona, and since then his career has gone downhill. As part of the sad “coyotes”, Alex still looked good, but then new trades followed: first to Pittsburgh, then to Minnesota, and these jumps around the clubs did not bring Galchenyuk anything good.
In 2020, Ottawa drafted free agent Galchenyuk, but after just eight games for the Senators, Alex ended up in a trade with Carolina, only to be drafted with refusals a day later. After going through this process, the Hurricanes traded the striker in Toronto (by the way, for Yegor Korshkov). Then there were the AHL games for the Marlies, the return to the NHL, the market entry, the return to Arizona, the sudden entry into Team USA for the 2022 World Cup, and then the strange relationship with the Colorados. The Avalanches, who had just won the Stanley Cup, signed Galchenyuk to a trial contract, kicked the striker out of the club a week later, and two months later… signed him to a minimal deal.
But a week passed (!), and Colorado sent Galchenyuk to the rebound draft. From there nobody took Alex, who spent the rest of the season in the AHL, becoming, by the way, the second goalscorer for the Eagles, having played only 42 games in the regular season.
Before the 2023 market opened, Colorado dumped Galchenyuk by trading him to Nashville, but on July 1, Alex became an unrestricted free agent and soon signed with Arizona. Probably the last contract of his NHL career. Now the forward is already in the resignation draft for the umpteenth time, and now also under investigation, and so far we can only guess what Galchenyuk did on July 9 and what were the real reasons for his behavior. But the crazy releases of the clubs in recent years clearly indicate that something went wrong in the life of the once talented hockey player.
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It is logical that Galchenyuk’s fall from the NHL professional ladder was accompanied by various rumors about his possible transfer to the KHL, or at least about interest in him from Russian teams. Alex’s origins and the stagnation of the games hinted that this option was quite possible, but as far as we know, Galchenyuk simply did not want to leave America for Russia, even in times of greater political calm.
Now Galchenyuk is unlikely to have options to continue his career abroad – it’s time to lure the striker into the KHL, where all persons declared non grata in America are treated with special honor. But the pledge not to leave the country clearly says that Galchenyuk will not leave the country until the end of the trial, so Alex will have to wait with a hypothetical transfer to Russia. Unless, of course, after all the events of the last few years, he wants to continue his hockey career. But his age (29) clearly allows for a massive reset.
