The Anaheim Ducks were one of just five teams to keep a 2026 draft pick in the NHL heading into the 2026-27 season, now they're the first of those five to send their player back to the Canadian Hockey League.
On Friday afternoon, the Ducks announced that forward Nikita Klepov, the 15th overall pick in this past summer's NHL Draft, has been reassigned to the Saginaw Spirit of the Ontario Hockey League.
Often, when a young prospect is given an opportunity to stick in the NHL their team prioritizes their ice time and development. Instead, the Anaheim Ducks handled Klepov very differently. The 18-year-old winger appeared in just four of the team's first 13 games, often sitting on the sideline as a healthy scratch.
While Klepov never scored in his stint with the Ducks, he also wasn't given an opportunity to find consistency in his game. He sat out of the team's first two games, including the home opener, before making his debut against the Edmonton Oilers on October 7.
Then Klepov was out of the lineup for over a week, returning when the Ducks hosted the Boston Bruins nine days later. He then remained in the lineup for their next game against the New York Rangers , but was then scratched for a game once again. His final and most recent appearance for the Ducks came eight days ago against the New Jersey Devils.
In his first four NHL games, Klepov failed to record a point and had six penalty minutes. With that being said, two other selections in the 2026 NHL Draft still have yet to record a point, Viggo Bjorck of the Winnipeg Jets and Alberts Smits of the New York Rangers, yet they've both been given quite a bit more of an opportunity than Klepov was considering they've been regulars in their respective teams' lineups.
The way that Ducks management has handled Klepov's development is definitely a head-scratcher. The 18-year-old was dominant in his first season with the Spirit. He scored 37 goals and tallied a total of 97 points in 67 games as an OHL rookie. He was named the league's rookie of the year, won the Jim Mahon Trophy as the league's top scoring right-winger, and finally won the Eddie Powers Trophy as the league's top point scorer during the 2025-26 season.
While the team didn't have much postseason success, that certainly can't be blamed on Klepov. He had five points, one of which was a goal, in four postseason games.
While there are still team-based accolades that Klepov could win, such as the OHL Championship and the Memorial Cup, he's accomplished everything that he could as an individual player already. If the Ducks weren't ready to commit to him playing regularly at the NHL level, it would've been much wiser to advise him to commit to a school in the NCAA for the 2026-27 season and re-evaluate his standing next spring.
Klepov will undoubtedly light it up in the OHL, but it seems fair to question what else he can do to develop in that league at this stage.
This article was originally published on HEAVY
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