rotenburg aside, it's amazing how easy it was for him to transition from the mhl to khl. didn't expect it at all.
I watched Demidov play all season long in the MHL his draft year, thinking to myself there was no way he was lasting to the Canadiens' pick. But there he was and I was so happy. Moreso considering how livid I was the year prior when the management selected Reinbacher (whom I had 9th in 2023) over Michkov, who was my #2 that year.
Thing is, I watched all those games of Demidov's but I still held some slivers of doubt that he would adapt seamlessly to the KHL.
Demidov's defense in the MHL was good overall but un-energetic, and he would often cheat in favor of offense. I thought this "wouldn't fly" at all in the KHL and might hold him back.
Demidov's edges, agility, and reaction speed were quite clearly elite even then, but I wondered if his explosiveness and straight-line speed would be good enough to afford him the time/space that he needs to create in the KHL. And his 10-2 skating made me doubt whether he could sustain an entire calendar year of play in the KHL, with all the knee-on-knee collisions that that style of skating was prone to cause.
Similarly, I thought that Demidov had some issues fighting through checks in the MHL playoffs against the top teams (those that really challenged SKA, not the weak "Silver Division" MHL teams), and that cast some added amount of doubt in my mind on whether he'd be able to do himself justice in the pros right away, against smarter/stronger/faster players.
But what I feel is a bit understated, and kind of lost in how Demidov has managed to establish himself as a great KHL player right off the bat, is how PRODUCTIVE Demidov's Summer was.
The improvement Demidov showed in several key areas over such a short period of time was kind of crazy to be honest.
He seemed faster on the ice from the get-go at training camp. It might be a result of some targeted training and/or finally being healthy after having played through a high-ankle injury through the year. Either way Demidov was just clearly faster on the ice when he showed up for SKA's training camp this Fall than he was to my eyes in the MHL playoffs last Spring, and in the beginning of his season in Fall 2023.
I also noticed that Demidov seemed to have gotten noticeably stronger on his skates over the Summer, and that helped him a ton when sutaining contact and trying to make a play through it.
Then there were the improvements to his defensive game that I immediately saw at camp; those made me throw all doubts I had about Demidov's game not translating to the NHL straight out of the window.
At camp Demidov was just as strong offensively as he'd ever been in the MHL, but he was coming so much deeper and with much greater alacrity in the defensive zone to help support his D. That was a real eye-opener for me that Demidov could play like that and still retain all of his offensive potency.
But the real clincher for me was when he played against SKA and other KHL teams in the annual mini-tournament that they hold during training camp against top young russian prospects.
Basically, as soon as I saw how Demidov was playing against the pros in those exhibition matches, deking around and through them with ease, out-muscling, out-skating, out-smarting, out-competing them in a lot of different situations, I knew he was gonna have a good year. When I watched further, and saw how Demidov's offensive skills, improved strength and skating, as well as his newfound focus on defensive play all kind of melded into and fed each other, I knew that his season in the KHL wouldn't be a good one but a great one.
That was my personal tipping point, those exhibition games against SKA where Demidov made full-time KHL defensemen miss and look silly.
That's when I knew he was gonna have a great KHL season if Rotenberg played him enough.