montreal
Go Habs Go
That goes to show how important the draft position of player is to subsequent perceptions of him. I mean, Korneev mounts a fairly good challange against Emelin in terms of currently being the best defenceman out of the trio and is defenitely at the present moment better than his teammate Kirill Lyamin, who the Ottawa Senators happen to hold in quite high regard. Granted, Korneev is a couple years older and followed the developmental curver of a late(r) bloomer.
Well for the Habs their depth of D prospects is way out of whack, we are loaded with RD's and short on LD's (kind of opposite of most teams) so with Emelin he's easily our top LD prospect and likely top D prospect at least in my eyes, although I really liked Korneev at the wjc's and have seen a good bit of him when he was with AK Bars.
Out of 13 D prospects at various levels, 8 of 13 are RD's, so the improtantance of getting another RD in Korneev over here might be lessened when compared with Emelin and Valentenko since they are both LD's and likely our top 2 LD prospects. In fact out of the 5 LD prospects we have, we could lose 2 this summer in Korpikari from Karpat if he's not signed and Cote with Hamilton as he's a Group VI UFA this summer. After Emelin and Valentenko the Habs LD future is bleak at best. Whereas they right side they have David Fischer, Ryan O'Byrne, Mathieu Carle, Korneev, Paquet etc..
As for Korneev I seem to recall him getting a lot of praise for his play in his rookie year in the RSL with the Soviet Wings, although it was said he only got top ice time because the team was so bad. The nhl lockout and injuries sure hampered his developement while with AK Bars. Frankly I'd really like to see him come over, I still remember his open ice hit on Joni Pitkanen at the wjc's!