Prospect Info: Ivan Demidov (2024 5th OA): SKA St. Petersburg (KHL)

[the valiant effort]

I dunno man. There are few if any who have less respect for 99.9% of the 2021-2023 draft classes than me, but on puck-handling and distribution alone I think 24 year-old Michkov will be on a completely different tier of weapon than Caufield

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

I dunno man. There are few if any who have less respect for 99.9% of the 2021-2023 draft classes than me, but on puck-handling and distribution alone I think 24 year-old Michkov will be on a completely different tier of weapon than Caufield

But will he have the same finish? Those are two different things.

 

[Sasha Orlov]

The narrative has now shifted to “nobody ever doubted him” on the mains

Peoples heads are going to explode next year when he is lighting up the league, the cope is just unreal

 

[Skip Bayless]

The narrative has now shifted to “nobody ever doubted him” on the mains

Peoples heads are going to explode next year when he is lighting up the league, the cope is just unreal

November 2025 - "Yeah but his underlying data is not sustainable, he wont be able to keep this up for much longer."

January 2026 - "Once the Ds in the league will figure out that move he does all the time, he will get destroyed"

February 2026 - "49 goals is nice, but his shooting mechanics are easy to figure out, he will have a hard time next year"

August 2026 "It's easy to be 2.86 PPG when the refs hand you every call"

February 2027 "It's easy to get 189 pts in 57 games when your lineup is stacked"

 

[CHwest]

November 2025 - "Yeah but his underlying data is not sustainable, he wont be able to keep this up for much longer."

January 2026 - "Once the Ds in the league will figure out that move he does all the time, he will get destroyed"

February 2026 - "49 goals is nice, but his shooting mechanics are easy to figure out, he will have a hard time next year"

December 2026 "It's easy to be 2.86 PPG when the refs hand you every call"

February 2027 "It's easy to get 189 pts in 57 games when your lineup is stacked"

They sound like the people deriding the Chiefs.

 

[Sasha Orlov]

November 2025 - "Yeah but his underlying data is not sustainable, he wont be able to keep this up for much longer."

January 2026 - "Once the Ds in the league will figure out that move he does all the time, he will get destroyed"

February 2026 - "49 goals is nice, but his shooting mechanics are easy to figure out, he will have a hard time next year"

December 2026 "It's easy to be 2.86 PPG when the refs hand you every call"

February 2027 "It's easy to get 189 pts in 57 games when your lineup is stacked"

So what if he broke Gretzky’s record? He wasn’t even good

 

[Boyon90]

 

[SOLR]

He’s consistently scored at a 40 plus goal pace per 82 when healthy under MSL. That’s a fact.

He's not worth a 40-goal scorer until he scores 40 goals. I'm pretty sure Michkov is going to do this more often.

Caufield averaged 38 goals and 69 points under MSL, in 219 games (102 goals, 185 points). Calling him a 30 goal second line winger is just as ill-informed.

Don't bother responding.

Oh but I will. Lets talk about Savage and Higgins more, ok. I'm done.

 

[SannywithoutCompy]

Zero evidence outside of the inconvenient U18 MVP tournament where Michkov was the best player in the world, period.

Caufield never ever, showed tier-1 performance in best on best. Even with tier 1 Hughes playing with him.

Caufield at 24, in his f-ing prime, can't make the US team...think about that for a second.

I didn't guarantee anything. All I said is that Michkov's potential is much, much, higher than Caufield and their rookie seasons are already quite telling.

Michkov 20 years old, 0.66 pts per game.
Caufield 21 years old 0.64 pts per game.

So 1 year younger, Michkov is already trending to outperform Caufield in his rookie that happened when he was older.

Stop with the (mod) and false statements, there is gap of potential between these two, there always was one.

I mean Caufield put up 14 goals in 7 games at the U18s

 

[SOLR]

I mean Caufield put up 14 goals in 7 games at the U18s

I mean, playing with Jack Hughes at 17 years old.

Michkov 16 years old U 18
7 games, 12 goals, 4 assists.

Caufield 16 years old U 18
7 games 4 goals 2 assists.

I think this difference in potential will show itself back from the time Michkov will be 22-23.

Again I'm not against Caufield. He's a valuable asset, just not the kind of asset I would compare to Suzuki for example. Suzuki is 2-3x more valuable than Caufield. And I think Michkov can reach big offensive numbers Caufield can't, it's not a controversial take in any way.

 

[JIMVINNY]

He's not worth a 40-goal scorer until he scores 40 goals. I'm pretty sure Michkov is going to do this more often.

If not for bad faith arguments, you'd have no arguments.

Michkov might end up better than Caufield, but so far, hasn't proven anything. What you're "pretty sure" of means jack squat. Caufield has proven he's a top line winger, Michkov hasn't proven he's anything but a skilled cherry picker who doesn't play defense. I understand you're really broken up that Demidov looks to be a FAR better player than Michkov, but if all you're going to do is try to deflect the topic of conversation here, please go away.

 

[26Mats]

I mean, playing with Jack Hughes at 17 years old.

Michkov 16 years old U 18
7 games, 12 goals, 4 assists.

Caufield 16 years old U 18
7 games 4 goals 2 assists.

I think this difference in potential will show itself back from the time Michkov will be 22-23.

Again I'm not against Caufield. He's a valuable asset, just not the kind of asset I would compare to Suzuki for example. Suzuki is 2-3x more valuable than Caufield. And I think Michkov can reach big offensive numbers Caufield can't, it's not a controversial take in any way.

Would be great to have gotten Michkov and Demidov in the last two drafts.

But at least we have Caufield, Suzuki, Hutson, just got Demidov and Hage, and hopefully Salf, Dach, Laine, and Reinbacher will take their games to another level.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

He's not worth a 40-goal scorer until he scores 40 goals. I'm pretty sure Michkov is going to do this more often.

It doesn’t matter if he has a 40 goal season or not. It matters at what rate he scores per game. The only reason he hasn’t scored 40 in a season is health.

Will Michkov score at that rate? Maybe. Again though… not a sure thing.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Would be great to have gotten Michkov and Demidov in the last two drafts.

But at least we have Caufield, Suzuki, Hutson, just got Demidov and Hage, and hopefully Salf, Dach, Laine, and Reinbacher will take their games to another level.

Michkov Demidov and Caufield… we’d score a billion goals.

Honestly though, we desperately needed a big presence on the right D. I think we’ll be okay with that pick. And Demidov mitigates us not getting Michkkov. I think when all is said and done this will work out much better for us.

Experts seem to think Demidov will be the better player anyway so it should work out for us.

 

[LaineBOOM]

Would be great to have gotten Michkov and Demidov in the last two drafts.

The way we woild have boasted on Michkov would have made it impossiböe to get Demidov as well. This is the other teams drafting ahead of us would have rather died than given us a chance to boast about 2 supertalented Russians.

And thats actually 100 % true, theres no way we would have gotten Demi had we drafted Michkov in the previous draft. And Demi is the guy we want, 100 %.

 

[26Mats]

The way we woild have boasted on Michkov would have made it impossiböe to get Demidov as well. This is the other teams drafting ahead of us would have rather died than given us a chance to boast about 2 supertalented Russians.

And thats actually 100 % true, theres no way we would have gotten Demi had we drafted Michkov in the previous draft. And Demi is the guy we want, 100 %.

I think teams think about themselves, not us. And they already made dumb decisions, which was great!

 

[HomaridII]

Random question - has anybody found a way to get a demidov SKA jersey?

 

[Thomas Sowell]

I watched over a dozen games of Michkov this year, I think he will be a threat offensively on the PP but I am not sure he will be more than a 40/40 guy or 80-85 pts that will finish in the minus. I don't get the major hype on him honestly

Thank you . This is pretty much what I see in him too.

All of the hype is because of what he did as a 15/16 year old but as we all well know from the history of exceptional status players in the CHL, what you are at that age doesn't mean you are going to be the next mcdavid, lol

Its virtually impossible to convince other fans of this, you know as well as I do that we all (our atleast most of us) threw our remotes into the TV when Carey Price said "David" but it was in large part for two reasons.
One, we were absolutely dead in the water on offence and two and much more importantly, in the wake of realizing our chances at an actual potential generational talent were slim we allowed the media circus and our own hopeful imaginations lead us all to believe that we still had an opportunity at one.
As high of potential David reinbacher has ( like seriously, he's got like Shea Weber vibes), that paled in comparison to the home run swing we all wanted hughes to take, that we ALWAYS want our GM to take

I just don't see him as better than Caufield.(;Or even Ryan Leonard for that matter, kudos to the ones who said that last year) Caufield is a really f***ing good player. I don't know if everyone appreciates how good he is lol. I was absolutely certain that him and Jack Hughes were 1-2 and the roller coaster of emotions I went through to finally arrive at 15 and hear his name could have been heard in sarnia lol

But make no mistake about it, Ivan Demidov is on another level. At the start of the year I had my opinion but it was a debate. But now ..He has pulled away. He's special. I have never seen anything like this on the habs in my lifetime. I'm 34.

Demidov - Suzuki - Caufield is going to annihilate the NHL and I am so excited for it.

 

[Ozmodiar]

Looking forward to Demidov’s first goal and Caufield’s celebration that follows it.

 

[Shred]

Random question - has anybody found a way to get a demidov SKA jersey?

From reading many posts on this forum on a regular basis, I have gathered information suggesting @ahmedou is on the trail.

 

[Sasha Orlov]

Random question - has anybody found a way to get a demidov SKA jersey?

DH Gate

 

[BigDaddyLurch]

Random question - has anybody found a way to get a demidov SKA jersey?

 

[SOLR]

It doesn’t matter if he has a 40 goal season or not. It matters at what rate he scores per game. The only reason he hasn’t scored 40 in a season is health.

Will Michkov score at that rate? Maybe. Again though… not a sure thing.

So in trades it doesnt matter if he doesn't score 40 in a season.

Stupid argument of the millennium.

 

[LaineBOOM]

I made an Ivan Demidov hype video! Laine video tomorrow

 

[Zine]

Michkov could well be better. None of us can know. But it’s not a given that he will be.

Goals are more valuable than assists are. Michkov is not trending to being the better player.

He may in fact wind up being the better player but it’s far from the given you’re trying to say it is.

The same could be said for Demidov, yet Hab fans are already crowning him the next elite superstar of the organization.

It’s more than reasonable to assume Michkov will outperform Caufield in the future. Never has CC outdone Michkov at the same age.
I mean a 24 y.o. CC can’t even make Team USA. Lol

Of course nothing is given, but (just as it is for Demidov) it’s all about reasonable projection.