Former New Jersey Devils forward Daniel Sprong inked a one-year deal with CSKA Moscow of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL), as announced by the team on its site. The 28-year-old native of Amsterdam, Netherlands, had 11 games in the NHL with the Devils in the 2024-25 season, where he moved after stints with the Seattle Kraken and the Vancouver Canucks. Other than that, he had 25 points with 11 goals and 14 assists with the Coachella Valley Firebirds of the American Hockey League (AHL).
In his NHL career, Sprong has 166 (87 goals, 79 assists) points in 374 regular-season games with several teams. He had two good seasons in 2022-23 and 2023-24, with the Kraken and the Detroit Red Wings, surpassing the 40-point mark both times, with 46 and 43 points, respectively. He was a second-round pick for the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2015 and moved to Canada when he was eight. He is the third NHL player born in the Netherlands; the first two, Ed Kea and Ed Beers, were also raised in Canada.
The Moscow-based franchise now has six international players under contract. They recently signed Rhett Gardner to a two-year deal after he played for the AHL’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms last season, while earlier in the offseason, they inked defenseman Jeremy Roy and goalie Spencer Martin after cutting ties with Ivan Prosvetov. Defenseman Colby Williams and forward Cole Cassels remain in the squad from last year. KHL rules allow for a maximum of five international players in a team’s lineup.
