Pittsburgh Penguins forward Andrei Kuzmenko is away from the team after learning that his father was killed in a bear attack in Russia, the club confirmed Friday.
The Penguins said in a brief statement that the 30-year-old winger had been granted leave and asked that his family's privacy be respected. The team did not release further details about the circumstances of the attack, and it is not yet known where in Russia the mauling occurred or whether anyone else was present.
Kuzmenko, a native of Yakutsk in the Russian republic of Sakha, was in his first season with Pittsburgh. He signed with the Penguins after spending parts of three seasons with the Vancouver Canucks and a brief stint with the Philadelphia Flyers. The Yakutia region where he grew up is sparsely populated, heavily forested, and home to a significant brown bear population. Bear encounters that end in human fatalities are not unheard of in remote Russian territory, though official figures are difficult to verify and deaths are often reported only by local outlets.
The team has not said when Kuzmenko is expected to return to the ice, and no funeral arrangements have been announced. The NHL and the NHL Players' Association had not issued public statements at the time of publication.
Kuzmenko broke into the NHL with Vancouver in 2022 and quickly became a fan favorite for his goal-scoring flair and outspoken personality. He was traded to Philadelphia in January 2025 before landing in Pittsburgh. Teammates have not yet spoken publicly about the loss.
Under Russian law, bear hunting is heavily regulated, and the animals are a protected species in many regions. Spring hunts are permitted in some areas, and in the fall, hunters pursue bears that have been feeding on salmon runs in preparation for winter. A bear attacking a human is often described by wildlife officials as a product of starvation, injury, or an unexpected encounter at close range. Russian authorities on Friday did not respond to requests for comment on the attack.
The incident comes as relations between Washington and Moscow remain at their lowest point in decades. Many Russian-born NHL players continue to live and work in North America, and several have spoken in recent years about the difficulty of traveling home. The league has no policy restricting players from returning to Russia during the offseason, though some have declined to do so.
Our Take
There is nothing political about a family grieving a father killed in the woods of Yakutia — and we should say that plainly. Our hearts go out to Andrei Kuzmenko and his family. A son should not have to learn that his dad was mauled to death by a bear while he was thousands of miles away, chasing a career far from home.
But notice what else is going on here. This is a story about an American professional sports league whose star players are still citizens of a country most Americans have been told is an existential enemy. We send our athletes to play in a league that employs these men, then we treat their homeland as a villain in every other breath. That contradiction is not Kuzmenko's fault, and it is not his father's fault. It is the fault of a globalist foreign policy establishment that has spent decades picking fights with half the world and then acting surprised when ordinary people pay the price.
And note, too, that the legacy media will barely cover this. A Russian man dies on his own land, and a Russian-born NHL player is pulled off the ice mid-season. That is a tragedy. But it does not fit the narrative that keeps the war machine running. So it lands for an hour, then disappears.
Kuzmenko's teammates in Pittsburgh will wear his name on their helmets and move on. The league will issue a statement. But the man in Yakutia who raised him is gone. There is no schedule for that kind of loss. You can only wait, dress, and play on.
