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Rumors: Kraken looking to sign Slovak Extraliga’s top scorer; Samuel Bucek

While the Kraken are obviously looking forward to the NHL Draft, that doesn’t mean you can’t poke around the hockey world and look for talent where it pops up. And it appears that at the World Championships in Helsinki/Tampere, Ron Francis has popped up and appears to have made an impression on HK Nitra forward Samuel Buček, as an editor for the Slovakian sports website Sport.sk reported.

Buček had this to say while he was on Slovakia’s version of Sportscenter:

The following has been lightly paraphrased due to imperfect translation with the software available to DJLR for clarity’s sake:

Ron for his part, did his due diligence by keeping his mouth shut, saying that he couldn’t talk about something like that right now when asked for comment.

Buček is 6’3, 205 pounds, plays wing, and has been playing on and off with HK Nitra since he was a teenager, and has slowly been building some impressive play as he’s grown, culminating in his 2021-22 campaign; where he led the entire Tipo Extraliga in goals with 41 in 50 games, and of course was the leading point-getter for HK Nitra, and turned right around and did the exact same thing in the playoffs: leading the Extraliga playoffs in goals and points with 13 in 19 games.

Our man was busy this year.

Now, part of this could be that HK Nitra has not just one of the best scorers in the league, but also Simon Nemec, a top 5 prospect for the NHL draft that the Kraken could very easily end up with. Buček would be a welcome sight for the young fella to have as a friend to keep him from feeling homesick…but that’s also a really nice value add for Ron Francis: Worst-case, he can play in Coachella Valley, help acclimate other foreign talents to the US game, and be a contributor here and there as necessary.

Best case? Found money in your depth. Who can’t love that?

Also side note: HK Nitra’s logo absolutely rules. 10 out of 10 hockey logo with an excellent story behind it.

We’ll keep tabs on whether or not Buček and the Kraken agree to terms, and report it as soon as we have the amount!

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