Alex Alexeyev is set to start the next chapter of his pro career back in his home country.
According to Match TV, the St. Petersburg, Russia native will sign a two-year contract worth 50 million rubles (~$679k) per season with the KHL’s Salavat Yulaev this summer. Alexeyev is currently a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins organization, playing with the club’s AHL affiliate, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, who are currently in an Eastern Conference Finals series against the Toronto Marlies.
While Alexeyev played the first 10 games of the postseason for the Baby Pens, including a series against many of his friends on the Hershey Bears, he has not been in the team’s lineup since Game 1 against the Marlies. The 2025-26 season was Alexeyev’s first in North America outside of the Washington Capitals organization after the Caps selected him with the 31st overall pick in the 2018 NHL Draft.
After signing a one-year contract with the Penguins, Alexeyev never got into an NHL game for the team, playing 38 regular-season games in the AHL. In 80 career NHL games for the Capitals, he recorded eight points (1g, 7a) and averaged 14:59 of ice time per game.
In Alexeyev’s lone prior KHL experience, during the 2020-21 campaign, he played 55 games with Salavat. The club, coached by former Capitals winger Viktor Kozlov, had Alexeyev’s former Caps teammate Evgeny Kuznetsov on its roster last season, as well as forward Sheldon Rempal, who started the fall with the Caps.
Salavat finished the 2025-26 season fifth in the KHL’s Western Conference, earning a playoff spot. They won their first-round series against Avtomobilist Ekaterinburg before being swept out of the second round by Lokomotiv Yaroslavl.
