Canucks appear to lose defenseman Nikita Tryamkin.

The Vancouver Canucks appear to have lost one of their assets for absolutely nothing.

On Sunday morning Vancouver Canucks insider Rick Dhaliwal reported that the Canucks have failed to come to terms with 26 year old defenseman Nikita Tryamkin, a player that has spent the last four seasons of his pro hockey career playing in the Kontinental Hockey League. Although Tryamkin had not played for the Canucks for some time now, there had been signs that he was set to make a return to the team until this news broke today.

Back in the early April, Tryamkin's agent Todd Diamond, confirmed to several news outlets that he had indeed engaged in talks with Canucks management who were looking to bring their former third round pick (66th overall) in the 2014 National Hockey League Entry Draft back to North America. Although at the time Diamond had suggested that a deal was more likely to come in the offseason when the Canucks salary cap situation was more clear, it would now appear as though Tryamkin will be remaining in the KHL for at least the next two years.

Dhaliwal reports that Tryamkin has signed a two year deal in the KHL, and I suspect that the length of the term on his new contract is no coincidence. When the two years of his new KHL deal have come and gone the Russian born defenseman will no longer be tied to the Vancouver Canucks organization and will effectively become and unrestricted free agent, free to sign with any NHL team that may be interested in his services.

Following his departure from the Canucks organization the 26 year old blue liner set career highs for goals (9), assists (16) and points (25) in the KHL and has played at a level high enough that the Canucks were interested in giving him another shot in North America. It sounds like, according to Dhaliwal's report, that the Canucks did indeed try to get a deal done with Tryamkin and his agent but failed to come to an agreement before he opted to sign a new deal in the KHL.

There's little doubt that this will be painted as another failure on the part of Canucks' management, although it's hard to gauge how valuable a commodity Tryamkin would be on this side of the globe.