Dmitrij Jaskin was not expected to return to the Washington Capitals after the team did not extend him a qualifying offer in late June. Two months later, it appears Jaskin has found his landing spot and will move to the KHL next season after apparently not receiving a suitable offer from an NHL team.

The news was first reported by Sport-Express’s Igor Eronko.

Moscow Dynamo acquired rights for Dmitrij Jaskin. 1-year deal should be in place soon #KHL #Caps

— Igor Eronko (@IgorEronko) August 21, 2019

Dynamo Moscow, the KHL team Alex Ovechkin played for, acquired Jaskin’s rights, and it’s expected the Russian-born Czech forward will sign a one-year contract for the 2019-20 season.

Despite very strong possession numbers, Jaskin was never able to carve out a roster spot for himself in the NHL. Jaskin was cut by the St. Louis Blues shortly before the regular season began. With Tom Wilson facing a lengthy suspension, general manager Brian MacLellan claimed Jaskin on waivers as insurance.

Jaskin skated his first game for the Capitals’ October 10 against the Vegas Golden Knights and went on to play in 36 more last season. He scored two goals had eight points, but his underlying numbers were tremendous.

Here’s how Jaskin rated at different individual offense process stats among Caps forwards during five-on-five last year.

More from Peter’s season review:

Jaskin’s contributions were massive, but he lacked two things: luck at finishing and any help whatsoever. Jaskin’s individual offense accounted for 26 percent of the Caps’ on-ice offense — a bigger share than anyone except Ovechkin. And Jaskin was viciously snake-bit, shooting 4.4 percent, lowest by far among Caps forwards. All that effort for nothing.

Jaskin’s PDO, the sum of his team’s shooting and saving percentages, was 98.0, lowest among all Caps forwards outside Chandler Stephenson. His on-ice save percentage was the lowest among all Caps, 90.5 percent, despite him allowing opponents 4.8 fewer high-danger chances per hour than Evgeny Kuznetsov, who somehow enjoyed a 92.7 save percentage.

That’s just abysmal luck, and that’s why — I guess– Jaskin got perma-benched despite having a uniformly positive impact on basically every underlying stat humans can think of. For example, with Jaskin every fourth-line forward was above 50 percent in shot attempts, but without him every fourth-line forward was just barely above the mendoza line of 40 percent.

The Capitals reportedly decided to put Jaskin on waivers before the NHL trade deadline in February before changing their minds and instead choosing Devante Smith-Pelly. Jaskin would not see the ice again except in the team’s final game of the season on April 6 against the New York Islanders after locking up the division title.

Headline photo: Elizabeth Kong