Michael McLeod signs three-year contract in KHL

Michael McLeod will play hockey in Russia in 2025-26.

The league announced early Thursday morning that McLeod signed a three-year contract with the KHL’s Omsk Avangard. Financial terms for the deal were not disclosed.

McLeod spent the 2024-25 season in the KHL with Avangard Omsk and Nur-Sultan Barys, scoring six goals and 13 assists for 19 points in a combined 35 regular-season games. He also scored a goal and seven assists for eight points in nine playoff games.

The news comes after McLeod and four other members of Canada’s 2018 World Junior Championship roster were found not guilty of sexual assault. Dillon Tube, Cal Foote, Alex Formenton and Carter Hart faced one count of sexual assault, while McLeod was also charged with being a party to the offenses.

In June of 2018, the accused were in London, Ont., to celebrate Canada’s 2018 World Junior gold medal win. After the Hockey Canada event, members of the team attended a bar in downtown London, where they met the alleged victim (only known as E.M. due to a publication ban). The alleged assault took place in a hotel room in London.

In April of 2022, the alleged victim filed a statement of claim, seeking $3.55 million in damages from Hockey Canada, the Canadian Hockey League and eight players who were unnamed at the time. Hockey Canada would go on to settle the lawsuit the following month for an undisclosed amount out of court.

All five players pleaded not guilty when the trial began on April 22.

Through six NHL seasons, McLeod, taken No. 12 overall by the New Jersey Devils in the 2016 NHL Entry Draft, recorded 29 goals and 56 assists for 85 points in 287 career regular-season games, all with the Devils.

Omsk currently sits third in the Eastern Conference with 18 points, four behind the division-leading Metallurg Magnitogorsk. Other players with NHL experience on the team include Nail Yakupov, Slava Voynov, Max Lajoie and Alexander Volkov.