Former Vancouver Canuck on Historic Goal-Scoring Pace in the KHL - Should They Bring Him Over?
What seems to be that every story somehow is resulting back to the Vancouver Canucks, former forward Josh Leivo is currently on a historic goal scoring pace over seas in Russia playing for the Ufa Salavat Yulayev of the KHL.
Josh Leivo's story in the NHL goes back over 10 years ago, when the Toronto Maple Leafs selected him with the 86th overall pick in the 2011 NHL Entry Level Draft.
Over a 265 game career in the NHL spanning 10 years and after playing 87 games for the Toronto Maple Leafs, he scored only 13 goals and 13 assist, which eventually found him getting moved to our Vancouver Canucks during the 2018-2019.
Over two seasons with the Canucks and appearing in 74 games, he never really found his game, scoring just 17 goals and 20 assists for 27 points and a +/- rating of +4.
He played for 4 other NHL clubs, splitting time between the AHL and NHL before making the hard decision to head over seas and sign with the Ufa Salavat Yulayev of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) in Russia.
Josh Leivo on historic goal-scoring pace in the KHL
After Leivo
's first season in the KHL, no one would have expected that he would be on the goal scoring run we are witnessing right now, but he has sure found his place finally in professional hockey.
In 35 games, Leivo has recorded 26 goals while also achieving an additional 15 assists for a total of 41 points.
He has by far become the teams and the KHL's best scorer this season as he is on currently on a 0.74 goals per game average and absolutely destroying the second-place Danil Aimurzin, who has 21 goals in 39 games for Severstal Cherepovets.
If Leivo continues on this pace for the rest of the season, he will have a slim chance at breaking Sergei Mozyakin's goal record he set during the 2016-17 season, where he put up 48 goals.
Even if Leivo does not break it, he is sure getting the attention of a lot of general managers in the NHL, and Patrik Allvin of the Vancouver Canucks must be one of them.
