It kind of feels like a full circle moment for old timer Nashville Predators fans who remember the fire that Alexander Radulov brought two decades ago and to now watch the near 40-year-old win the Gagarin Cup and become a 2026 KHL champion.
But it wasn't the elder Radulov who stole the show for Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, it was 19-year-old phenom and current Predators prospect Yegor Surin.
Surin, a first-round draft pick by Nashville in 2024, scored two goals in the clinching game and has Predators fans gleaming and waiting impatiently for his eventual arrival to the NHL. And let's just all hope it goes way better than it did with Radulov after two seasons and an dventual breakup in 2011-2012.
Alexander Radulov and Yegor Surin. Just two predators who hunted down two Gagarin Cups together in two years! 🏆🏆 pic.twitter.com/DK4rLuy7S6
— KHL (@khl_eng) May 21, 2026
The quick rise and fall of Alexander Radulov in Nashville Predators Gold
Radulov made his Predators debut on October 21, 2006. And now nearly two decades later he's hoisting a championship in what is widely regarded as the second-most diffucult league behind the NHL.
Radulov would score his first NHL in his next game just five days later, and would go on to score 46 more in 154 regular season games for Nashville. He would add six goals and eight assists in 18 playoff games for Nashville as well.
But the breakup was ugly, and old school Predators fans never forgot it. First he left for the KHL while still having a year left on his entry level contract. Then he eventually came back briefly, only to be suspended by the team for missing a curfew. He never suited up for the Predators again with his contract about to expire, and he went back to the KHL again for four more seasons.
The salt on the wound was Radulov coming back to the NHL again and eventually landing with division rival Dallas and finding a lotof success there.
Oh what could have been if Radulov never left early on his ELC, and more importantly, never brought the wrong kind of playoff drama to the Predators, forcing a suspension and subsequent breakup.
To be clear, Radulov was never a perennial NHL superstar. He never won any individual awards, never won a Stanley Cup, and never even made an All-Star team. He never managed to hit 30 goals in a regular season, but did have back-to-back 72-point seasons for Dallas.
Radulov has been back in the KHL for the past four seasons and has found success as a veteran, and he's still putting up respectable numbers for his age. He has scored 81 goals over this four-year stint after not returning to the Dallas Stars.
As far as what would have hapoened if Radulov had stayed with the Predators after those 2012 playoffs, I have a realky hard time imagining he would have ever been here long-term. He was usually more of a distraction that his talent wasn't worth.
Radulov was suspended as the Predators were getting their first taste of advancing past the first round. He had one goal and four assists in the series win over Detroit, with Phoenix up next.
Radulov would add another assist, but the Predators would fall behind 3-1 in the series as Radulov would be suspended for two games. In the elimination game, Radulov would play over 19 minutes, but held off the scoresheet.
And that was curtains for the turbulent Radulov era in Nashville. There was no way he was staying, and GM David Poile made the right call to not bring him back. The deeply-cut damage was already done in 2008 when he left Nashville at the alter to go back to Russia.
Was there any way to repair the damage done to keep Radulov?
Only way I could maybe see in a fantasy world Radulov re-signing with Nashville in 2012 was if he came back from suspension, leads the charge to comeback in the series against Phoenix, and Nashville gets at least very close to the Stanley Cup. Perhaps then Poile's hand would have been forced.
Let's say Radulov had signed for two years; the problem you run into there was the lockout shortened season. The Predators ended up being really bad that year, and the year after. Then it was a fanchise reset with the letting go of Barry Trotz, and the hiring of Peter Laviolette.
There's just no way Radulov sticks around for all of that. So this marriage was akways cursed from the start. But it is wild to see Radulov in 2026 winninga KHL with another highly talented Predators prospect in Surin.
To be fair, Radulov woukd have definitely been a solid player to have during the peak years with Laviolette, including 2017. Radulov was a 54-point scorer that season, his first year back from the KHL after leaving Nashville.
As for now, Surin has one year left on his KHL contract before the Preds can aggressively pursue an entry level deal. Surin likely comes straight to the NHL as soon as 2027-2028.
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