Valeri Nichushkin comes clean about Seattle police raid in new interview
Valeri Nichushkin's NHL career has taken a massive hit in recent times, and now he's opened up about the Seattle police raid that started the downfall.
During the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Colorado Avalanche forward Valeri Nichushkin was raided by police in Seattle while the team were on the road, and it's led to plenty of problems since. Nichushkin was even admitted to the NHL's Player Assistance Program in 2024, but now, he's opened up on the night in question for the first time.
«It was the most difficult season, there were a lot of injuries in the team all season. I missed 2 months due to bursitis. I also had a shoulder injury, which constantly bothered me. I always had problems sleeping, but because of the pain in my shoulder, the situation with my sleep got worse. They did an MRI and they couldn't decide whether to have surgery or not. In the end, they decided not to do it and gave me injections in my shoulder. These injections stopped helping and they decided to inject me with another drug. When we flew to Seattle, they decided that I would not play the match due to a shoulder injury, because I needed to not bother my shoulder for a while until the drug starts working and everyone on the team knew that I would not play until the end of the round. It put a lot of pressure on the psyche and was very annoying. I had friends in Seattle at that moment and I made the wrong decision, we hung out with them at night and in the morning I flew to Denver. This girl in my room has nothing to do with me. The club advised me not to give any comments, and I myself was not emotionally ready to explain all this. This was probably the wrong decision and it was necessary to tell the whole situation right away so that there weren't a bunch of different rumors. If we had made it to the second round, I would have been ready to play.»
The night in question has been surrounded by rumours for over 12 months now, and unsurprisingly, Nichushkin reveals that it wasn't much of a story in this interview, revealing that the woman in his room had nothing to do with him. It's hard to tell whether this is 100% factual given some of the speculation around the situation, but for now, this is Nichushkin's side of what happened on that night.
| POLL | ||
JUILLET 8 | 70 ANSWERS Valeri Nichushkin comes clean about Seattle police raid in new interview Will Valeri Nichushkin return to the ice in 2024/25 with Colorado? | ||
| Yes | 30 | 42.9 % |
| No | 40 | 57.1 % |
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