I'm going to preface by saying that I had Buium #3 overall and I was pretty upset that we didn't draft him...
There is no reason to be mad about this pick. You can be upset that maybe you had one or two guys ranked ahead of him that you would have liked more, but this is a good pick. A 6'7" tank, he is probably, as STI loves to say, the best skating 6'6" player you will ever see.
He also might be the best defensive defenseman prospect I have ever seen. His instincts are absolutely off the charts in the d zone. I honestly don't think I can remember a defensive prospect as polished as him in the d zone. He is by no means perfect, but when I watch him, I almost want to see his team perform terribly in the offensive zone so I can see him put the clamps on in the d zone. Being 17 and doing what he is doing physically as a defenseman in the KHL is unbelievable. If you guys haven't watched him before, go to YouTube and pull up any shift by shift of him and just watch it. The highlight videos of him don't show any defensive highlights, which is where he really shines. I legitimately think he could join the Devils this season and probably be the best defenseman defensively on the roster already. He is that good.
However, he is absolutely a project offensively. He has the skating and edges of the dynamic smaller defenseman we see dominate the NHL today, but lacks the puck skills, passing, and strong shot we see in the majority of defenseman in the NHL today. That's not to say that he can't acquire those skills, because I really think that in time, with enough work, he will be able to. He just has to put in the work. A lot of times, with physically gifted tools like Silayev, they don't have the toolbox to be successful. Silayev has the toolbox. It is clear he has to more to offer with the puck on his stick, which is shown by his smart reads, skilled puckhandling attempts, and frequent shots on goal for rebounds. However, he often is unsuccessful with these attempts because he does not have the skill yet. Though, the fact that he is making the right reads (albeit them being unsuccessful), should be seen as heavily a positive rather than a detriment to his game. When he starts developing his game in the offseason, he will see a higher success rate on these moves, and we are going to hopefully see his offensive game significantly improve as a result.
Although we won't be able to see Silayev for two more years, I think he needs two more years of development offensively to enter the NHL and not be significantly behind the curve offensively . And I definitely don't agree with the Victor Hedman comparisons. But this is a unicorn of a player. I can't think of a similar player to ever come through the draft and into the NHL. I honestly think that, as a rough low end expectation, Silayev will be a top 5 defensive defenseman in the NHL in his prime. That is an unbelievably valuable player, and that is the low end of what we can expect. At the top end, we see a 6'7" defensive monster that is chipping in 40 points a year alongside Simon Nemec. Silayev might not be the player you guys wanted, but he is a player that we should be EXTREMELY excited for. Unicorns don't come around often, so I am excited to see how he develops. The sky is truly the limit for him.
