Ducks acquire Ilya Lyubushkin from Sabres for 4th-round pick
The Ducks have acquired defenseman Ilya Lyubushkin from the Buffalo Sabres in exchange for a 2025 fourth-round draft selection, the team confirmed in a news release on Friday.
The pick was originally acquired from Minnesota as part of a deal for another defenseman, John Klingberg, last season near the trade deadline.
Lyubushkin, 29, has 39 points in 279 NHL games with Buffalo, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Arizona Coyotes. Unlike Klingberg, his physical presence has been his calling card, and he delivered as the Sabres’ leader in hits last season after signing a two-year, $5.5 million deal last summer.
A Moscow native nicknamed “The Russian Bear,” the 6-foot-2, 210-pound Lyubushkin first starred in the Kontinental Hockey League. He competed for Yaroslavl Lokomotiv in the years following the plane crash that killed 26 members of its senior team.
He began his North American career with Arizona in 2018. He was traded to Toronto in February 2022, before signing with Buffalo in July 2022.
Though his defensive metrics were poor last season and he did little to contribute to Buffalo’s high-octane offense, Lyubushkin provided excitement and even antagonism at times and played extensively as a penalty-killer.
Like freshly signed defenseman Radko Gudas, Lyubushkin relishes rocking opponents and delivering the occasional hip check. They each add teeth to a defense corps otherwise defined largely by its finesse. The Ducks also added Robert Hägg to their blue line this offseason.
“We are excited to add Ilya to our blue line as we targeted another defenseman for the right side this offseason,” Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek said in a statement. “He is a big, physical, hard-nosed player that can kill penalties and will make us harder to play against.”
Belying Lyubushkin’s willingness to lay out oncoming forwards is his ebullient personality, and both characteristics have proven endearing to his teammates. He took quickly to North American life in Arizona and continued to emerge as a locker room favorite in Toronto and Buffalo.
Lyubushkin, a right-handed shooter, could slot into a third-pairing role as a stay-at-home presence alongside a mobile defender, like rookie Jackson LaCombe.