After one season with Charlotte, defenseman Marc-Andre Gragnani is headed overseas .
On Wednesday, Lev, a Czech-based team in the predominantly Russian KHL, announced that it had signed Gragnani to a one-year contract. The 26-year-old defenseman was set to be an unrestricted free agent after concluding his one-year, two-way deal signed with the Carolina Hurricanes last summer.
Gragnani joins a group of several Checkers that have headed overseas at the conclusions of their contracts over the last three seasons, joining Oskar Osala in 2011 and Evgenii Dadonov, Chris Durno Mike Murphy and Mathieu Roy in 2012. The Hurricanes still own NHL rights to Osala, Dadonov and Murphy, who were restricted free agents at the time of their departures.
Gragnani, the AHL’s Defenseman of the Year in 2010-11, is coming off a season in which he missed 33 games due to injury over four separate stints, causing him to finally call it a season on April 10. However, he was still able to show his high-end offensive skills in limited duty, ranking first among Checkers defensemen and sixth on the team in scoring with 28 points (3g, 25a) in 42 games.
Twenty-one of Gragnani’s 28 points came on the power play, where he ranked second on the team in scoring and tied for fifth among all AHL defensemen in assists (18). During an Oct. 26 game at Grand Rapids, he became the first AHL player to record four power-play assists in a single game since Jan. 11, 2011. Over the course of the regular season, the Checkers converted power plays at a 22.3 percent rate with him in the lineup, as opposed to a 17.2 percent rate without him.
Partially because of his injury trouble, Gragnani was limited to one game with Carolina after spending all of the previous season in the NHL with Buffalo and Vancouver. Buffalo’s third-round draft choice in 2005, Gragnani accumulated 234 points (50g, 184a) in 325 career AHL games with Rochester, Portland and Charlotte. In 74 NHL games, he scored 18 points (3g, 15a). To conclude his award-winning AHL season in 2010-11, he led Buffalo in playoff scoring with seven points (1g, 6a) in seven games, becoming the first Sabres defenseman to do so in 12 years.
Gragnani was one of 12 unrestricted free agents from last season’s Checkers team and the second to determine his future, with Justin Soryal announcing his retirement last week. Unrestricted free agents cannot sign with other North-American based clubs until July 5. The team also has 13 restricted free agents, whose rights will remain with Carolina as long as the club presents them with qualifying offers in the coming weeks.
