Former NHLer Michael McLeod has been signed by a second KHL team for the remainder of the season, Avangard Omsk and the league announced Tuesday in a post on X/Twitter.
McLeod and six other North American players were reportedly bought out of their contracts by last-place KHL team Barys Astana last month.
The 26-year-old McLeod, who is from Mississauga, Ont., was drafted 12th overall by the New Jersey Devils in 2016. In 287 NHL games, he scored 29 goals and 56 assists. McLeod was not re-signed by theDevils and signed as an unrestricted free agent with Astana on Aug. 2, registering three goals and three assists in 16 games for the team.
In addition to McLeod, also bought out by the Kazhakstan-based KHL team in two batches in the middle of October were Wade Allison, Nathan Beaulieu, Will Butcher, Chase De Leo, Alex Grant and C.J. Smith.
Allison, Beaulieu, Grant and McLeod are from Canada. Butcher, De Leo and Smith are Americans.
The sexual assault case of the five former members of Canada's 2018 world junior hockey team — McLeod, Dillon Dubé, Carter Hart, Cal Foote and Alex Formenton — is set to return to court on Monday. Dubé is playing for Dinamo Minsk, a KHL team based in Belarus, while the others are not playing professionally.
The five players were charged earlier this year in connection with an alleged sexual assault at a London, Ont., hotel in 2018.
They are all charged with sexual assault. McLeod also faces an additional charge of sexual assault for "being a party to the offence." A trial is set to begin on April 22, 2025.
--with files from The Canadian Press
