Jake Massie is the latest recent Hershey Bears player to head overseas this summer.
Barys Astana announced Friday morning that they have signed Massie to a one-year contract for the 2025-26 season. The 28-year-old defender won back-to-back Calder Cups with the Bears in 2023 and 2024 and played in 31 combined regular-season and playoff games for the club this past season.
Massie, a 2015 sixth-round pick of the Carolina Hurricanes, makes the move to the KHL’s lone team in Kazakhstan after playing the first six years of his professional career in the AHL and ECHL with the Bears, South Carolina Stingrays, Springfield Thunderbirds, and Greenville Swamp Rabbits.
Before turning pro, Massie played one season with the USHL’s Omaha Lancers and then spent three years playing college hockey at the University of Vermont.
The Quebec native missed a large portion of the 2024-25 campaign with a lower-body injury, recording four points (2g, 2a) in the 23 regular-season games he did play for the Bears. He posted an AHL career high 10 points (2g, 8a) in 30 games with Hershey during the 2023-24 season.
Massie will join former Bears teammate Mike Vecchione on Barys Astana. Vecchione was traded to the club just two weeks after he signed a one-year deal with Traktor Chelyabinsk. The other North Americans on the team include Massie’s former teammate with the Thunderbirds, Ian McCoshen, Quebec-born goaltender Olivier Rodrigue, and Andrei Nikolishin’s son, Ivan Nikolishin.
Barys Astana finished dead last in the KHL this past season, posting a 14-47-7 record in 68 games. The team has not made the playoffs for three consecutive seasons.
Massie is the sixth recent Bears player to sign in the KHL this summer, joining Vecchione, Alex Limoges, Riley Sutter, Chase Priskie, and Pierrick Dubé.
