Prospect Info: Mikhail Yegorov Pick 49 2024 NHL DRAFT

[thebeernerd]

Pretty cool to have him at the game with the team yesterday

I like that the team has been keeping tabs on him. They know he's a fit.

 

[devilsblood]

I like that the team has been keeping tabs on him. They know he's a fit.

He was one of the biggest stories in college hockey this year. I think it's fair to say he is our clear cut #1 prospect.

 

[HBK27]

He was one of the biggest stories in college hockey this year. I think it's fair to say he is our clear cut #1 prospect.

I don't know about clear cut - Silayev is right up there as well and still may be ahead of Yegorov.

Yegorov definitely raised his stock, while I don't think Silayev did anything to hurt his - obviously much tougher to judge a defensive defenseman playing in a league that most of us don't watch.

 

[Triumph]

I don't know about clear cut - Silayev is right up there as well and still may be ahead of Yegorov.

Yegorov definitely raised his stock, while I don't think Silayev did anything to hurt his - obviously much tougher to judge a defensive defenseman playing in a league that most of us don't watch.

It's a futile exercise to rank goalies against position players in general, but especially so as prospects. The exciting part of Yegorov is that there is a chance given how his college career goes that he could provide 2 years of ELC goaltending in the NHL, and if he is even a below-average goalie over that stretch, he would be incredibly valuable.

 

[devilsblood]

I don't know about clear cut - Silayev is right up there as well and still may be ahead of Yegorov.

Yegorov definitely raised his stock, while I don't think Silayev did anything to hurt his - obviously much tougher to judge a defensive defenseman playing in a league that most of us don't watch.

Derp, I forgot all about Silayev, was thinking Hams and Grits were our top prospects. Dang these guys playing behind the cloak of darkness. I do give Yeggo credit for getting out of there, and Silayev's ranking get's dinged because he could still be years away.

But you are right, definitely not clear cut, but after Yeggo's season, I do think it's debatable.

 

[devilsblood]

It's a futile exercise to rank goalies against position players in general, but especially so as prospects. The exciting part of Yegorov is that there is a chance given how his college career goes that he could provide 2 years of ELC goaltending in the NHL, and if he is even a below-average goalie over that stretch, he would be incredibly valuable.

C'mon man, live a little.

 

[Cheddabombs]

I don't know about clear cut - Silayev is right up there as well and still may be ahead of Yegorov.

Yegorov definitely raised his stock, while I don't think Silayev did anything to hurt his - obviously much tougher to judge a defensive defenseman playing in a league that most of us don't watch.

When Silayev gets a nickname like Big Mike he'll have a case. Until then Big Mike is #1 in my eyes

 

[devilsblood]

When Silayev gets a nickname like Big Mike he'll have a case. Until then Big Mike is #1 in my eyes

Ant Man?

 

[MakoSlade]

When Silayev gets a nickname like Big Mike he'll have a case. Until then Big Mike is #1 in my eyes

We can call Silayev Big Mike, and call Big Mike Yegormeister.

 

[Nubmer6]

We can call Silayev Big Mike, and call Big Mike Yegormeister.

Na. We can call him Big Ant.

 

[MakoSlade]

Na. We can call him Big Ant.

Sounds Soprano-ish...he'll fit right in!

 

[HBK27]

Sounds Soprano-ish...he'll fit right in!

If we're going Soprano's, isn't "Sil" or "Silvio" the natural choice then?

 

[evnted]

alright so this is the start of a series where i run through the D+1 of our 2024 picks in the context of what i originally wrote post-draft and talk about what progressed, what didnt, what i got wrong, etc. and when i say 2024 picks, i mean yegorov, silayev, and melovsky because tom already dealt traff/graham and i caught next to none of pikkarainen/louhivaara lol. i figured this would be cool as both a full season summary as well as a reflection of the scouting process in general

Yegorov is a great example of how stats don’t always tell the full story. A goalie with a 3.86 GAA, 0.892 sv%, and 8-25-3 record going in the top 50 picks? Really? But fear not, there’s plenty of reason to like this selection.

first thing i wrote and, with where hes at today, im glad thats how i started off. yes, production and raw stats do still have a place in pre-draft discussions, but yegorov is a great example of why actually watching the player (and factoring in team influence/surrounding environment) is imperative. we are projecting how good players will be throughout their careers, not assessing how well theyre doing in their draft year

Yegorov offers a high degree of athleticism with super quick reflexes. His movement across the net is quick and snappy, and while his lateral skating ability still stands to improve a bit, it’s not a significant limiting factor at this point. He’s extremely controlled when squaring up to a shooter, great at adjusting his stance if need be, and very hard to beat down low. Even in the butterfly, Yegorov’s 6’5” frame still feels large.

think everyone saw this first hand at the college level. insanely athletic for how big he is, and dominant down low. very intimidating presence in the crease with how largely he presents

It’s not just about the physical attributes, though. Yegorov is a very unshakable goalie. He’s not bothered by forwards driving his net or challenging the ice around his crease. As mentioned, he pretty much got shelled night in and night out thanks to the defenders in front of him, and yet you could never be able to tell that given how carries himself in net; Yegorov is fiercely competitive irrespective of the score. He also seems to have a remarkable ability to mentally reset after blowout losses. It’s a testament to his character and competitiveness that he’s so unaffected by the scoreboard.

kids a robot. no game situation got to him, no moment got to him (beanpot, playoffs), he just went out there and did his job. this, to me, is what makes him so unique. its not that other goalie prospects dont exhibit this level of mental fortitude, but they arent typically 6'5" with freak athletic ability on top of it. and the bounce back ability i talked about? ill let yegorov do the talking

no, i didnt cherry pick examples. excluding the national championship loss (which he obviously didnt play again after) these are the only games he posted a sub-.900 sv%. he responded every. single. time.

So, while Yegorov does have physical and mental strengths to his game, he also has weaknesses in both areas. Physically speaking, going back to his lateral movement issue, he has a tendency to overshoot save attempts and lose his crease. This occurs somewhat frequently and makes him look very slippery in net. The responsiveness to shot attempts is good, I do appreciate that, but he’s clearly overextending a lot of the time.

heres the first thing id say i kinda missed on, or at least didnt correctly extrapolate from his time in omaha. with the lancers, he absolutely struggled with over/underextending and losing his crease. with BU, though, i didnt see it that much. now, the terriers D corps had its issues, but they were still markedly better than omahas, so yegorov wasnt getting exposed nearly as badly. and, when play did break down, it was a lot of scrambles out front where he had more of a chance to make a save (as opposed to facing some insanely high danger shots/passing plays). obviously, i did try to factor this in, but where i think i went wrong was not weighing heavily enough how yegorov would have to alter his own play in response to the team in front of him. it wasnt just that he was getting exposed, he was trying to compensate for it by inadvertently over (or under) playing these attempts. so, in a more controlled ncaa environment, he was able to play a more controlled game

Positionally, he’s also not the best with his angles, which is particularly problematic on his glove side, which is not that great. Again, I appreciate that he’s aggressive in challenging shooters, but he can absolutely expose himself in the process, and the glove is simply not quick enough for him to recover.

Additionally, I wouldn’t say he’s the best at swallowing first attempts. This might not be an outright weakness because, generally speaking, I do trust his rebound control and ability to deflect pucks away from danger, but especially compared to some other goalies we passed on to land him, I don’t see the same ability to cleanly end scoring chances.

on the flip side, this was on the money. his glove and ability to cleanly swallow first attempts were two of the biggest issues that plagued him throughout both his DY and all season this year. key areas i wanna see him improve

Mentally speaking, his puck tracking and anticipation are both just fine. Far from the worst in the class, but not a clear strength of his game either. It’s good that he’s pretty much undisturbed by the traffic in front of him, but that’s not to say he’s always able to keep an eye on the puck. I’m also left to wonder if some of his anticipation issues are influencing his overextensions in net. Perhaps it’s less of a mechanical thing and more an issue of him misjudging how and to where the puck is moving. Something that might support this notion is that, although much less frequently, he’ll also undershoot save attempts as well.

im gonna defer to the extension discussion again because i thought his puck tracking at the ncaa level was pretty good (including through traffic). i think this was another case of him basically just trying to keep up in a poor ushl environment, which made things look worse than they actually were. and the point about his anticipation/extension issues being related is probably true considering how quickly they both stopped being a problem once he got behind a structured defense

I believe the plan is for Yegorov to spend another year in Omaha and then head up to Boston University. I have no problem with this, particularly because I assume there just isn’t the same avenue for him to get playing time in BU if he were to go next season. As I said earlier, I want him getting reps more than anything, and I imagine staying with the Lancers will best accomplish that.

o god this didnt age well lol at least he got the reps i wanted

In terms of pick value, he wasn’t quite my top goalie available, which would’ve been Moysevich or Zarubin, but I still liked him in the late 2nd/early 3rd range, and had no problem with the team targeting the best NA-based goalie in the class. Russia really does seem to be the superior system for goalie development right now, but the NCAA route is still quite good. Plus, the team likely gets more control over his progression than they would have with Moysevich, who’s an overager signed for another 3 years, or Zarubin, who is probably a super long-term project.

if i more accurately factored in team influence on how he felt he had to play, i probably wouldve been more excited for him as a top 50 pick (and wouldve had him in the moysevich/zarubin range in the 40s). he just looked so raw at the ushl level, and truthfully, no matter how much i tried to preach that his stats shouldnt have mattered, it was still difficult to go too high on him with how bad they were. that said, i obviously still liked him, and im glad i emphasized that he was markedly better than all the major junior goalies everyone loved (because thats still very much true)

Yegorov is certainly the most talented draft-day goalie we’ve taken in a near decade, and while he probably went a bit earlier than I would’ve picked him, it’s hard to argue with the staff if they had him ranked as their #1 target. Plus, since they had just seen Nabokov get taken about 10 spots earlier, I imagine they were worried about a run on goalies starting and felt the need to jump on the Marino trade to get their guy. Given how the remainder of the 2nd and early parts of the 3rd went, I would say they were correct to assume that.

im not gonna sit here and talk long term starter yet, hes still got work to do, but ive never felt this good about a devils goalie prospect before. this is a special project, and i hope the org does what it needs to to fully cultivate the talent level. going from RUS U17 in his D-1 to USHL in his DY to NCAA in his D+1 is a huge acceleration, and the fact that hes thriving along the way is pretty crazy. so much growth potential still

yegorov is at least a top 2 prospect in our farm and, while i dont follow enough goalie prospects league wide to say top X placement there, given what he offers, there arent many better than him in the world. we were overdue for this

 

[PKs Broken Stick]

Brodeur is why we have Yegorov.

I said this about the pick in Dec 2024:
“I thought the 2024 goalie class had several intriguing goalies with size and we could’ve grabbed a different one later on.

Marty pushed for Yegorov and we spent a 2nd to get his man. If he’s more of a project and less of a stud that’s on him.”

But that also means if Yegorov is a stud then I’ve got to tip my cap to Marty.

Isn't all the goalie stuff because of him? Daws, Markstrom for sure...not sure about the others. Oh yea and ofc Rogalksi

 

[Clam Jensen]

alright so this is the start of a series where i run through the D+1 of our 2024 picks in the context of what i originally wrote post-draft and talk about what progressed, what didnt, what i got wrong, etc. and when i say 2024 picks, i mean yegorov, silayev, and melovsky because tom already dealt traff/graham and i caught next to none of pikkarainen/louhivaara lol. i figured this would be cool as both a full season summary as well as a reflection of the scouting process in general

first thing i wrote and, with where hes at today, im glad thats how i started off. yes, production and raw stats do still have a place in pre-draft discussions, but yegorov is a great example of why actually watching the player (and factoring in team influence/surrounding environment) is imperative. we are projecting how good players will be throughout their careers, not assessing how well theyre doing in their draft year

think everyone saw this first hand at the college level. insanely athletic for how big he is, and dominant down low. very intimidating presence in the crease with how largely he presents

kids a robot. no game situation got to him, no moment got to him (beanpot, playoffs), he just went out there and did his job. this, to me, is what makes him so unique. its not that other goalie prospects dont exhibit this level of mental fortitude, but they arent typically 6'5" with freak athletic ability on top of it. and the bounce back ability i talked about? ill let yegorov do the talking
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no, i didnt cherry pick examples. excluding the national championship loss (which he obviously didnt play again after) these are the only games he posted a sub-.900 sv%. he responded every. single. time.

heres the first thing id say i kinda missed on, or at least didnt correctly extrapolate from his time in omaha. with the lancers, he absolutely struggled with over/underextending and losing his crease. with BU, though, i didnt see it that much. now, the terriers D corps had its issues, but they were still markedly better than omahas, so yegorov wasnt getting exposed nearly as badly. and, when play did break down, it was a lot of scrambles out front where he had more of a chance to make a save (as opposed to facing some insanely high danger shots/passing plays). obviously, i did try to factor this in, but where i think i went wrong was not weighing heavily enough how yegorov would have to alter his own play in response to the team in front of him. it wasnt just that he was getting exposed, he was trying to compensate for it by inadvertently over (or under) playing these attempts. so, in a more controlled ncaa environment, he was able to play a more controlled game

on the flip side, this was on the money. his glove and ability to cleanly swallow first attempts were two of the biggest issues that plagued him throughout both his DY and all season this year. key areas i wanna see him improve

im gonna defer to the extension discussion again because i thought his puck tracking at the ncaa level was pretty good (including through traffic). i think this was another case of him basically just trying to keep up in a poor ushl environment, which made things look worse than they actually were. and the point about his anticipation/extension issues being related is probably true considering how quickly they both stopped being a problem once he got behind a structured defense

o god this didnt age well lol at least he got the reps i wanted

if i more accurately factored in team influence on how he felt he had to play, i probably wouldve been more excited for him as a top 50 pick (and wouldve had him in the moysevich/zarubin range in the 40s). he just looked so raw at the ushl level, and truthfully, no matter how much i tried to preach that his stats shouldnt have mattered, it was still difficult to go too high on him with how bad they were. that said, i obviously still liked him, and im glad i emphasized that he was markedly better than all the major junior goalies everyone loved (because thats still very much true)

im not gonna sit here and talk long term starter yet, hes still got work to do, but ive never felt this good about a devils goalie prospect before. this is a special project, and i hope the org does what it needs to to fully cultivate the talent level. going from RUS U17 in his D-1 to USHL in his DY to NCAA in his D+1 is a huge acceleration, and the fact that hes thriving along the way is pretty crazy. so much growth potential still

yegorov is at least a top 2 prospect in our farm and, while i dont follow enough goalie prospects league wide to say top X placement there, given what he offers, there arent many better than him in the world. we were overdue for this

 

[thebeernerd]

Hey, if you're going to have anything age poorly in your analysis, you could do worse than saying "he should stay in Omaha and get reps."

 

[My3Sons]

Hey, if you're going to have anything age poorly in your analysis, you could do worse than saying "he should stay in Omaha and get reps."

And here I thought the worst analysis was saying that tht best defenseman ever was and always will be Ben Lovejoy.

 

[Edmonton East]

For me, Yegorov is clearly the #1 prospect in the org heading into next season. There's no justification for Silayev aside from draft position.

Maybe that flips after next season or 4 years from now. Both goalies and particularly large dmen have very unpredictable dev curves, but right now it's obviously Yegorov. Ridiculous season and passed the eye test even prior to BU. He's only 19......with his talent/composure/athleticism and that frame, he could be a superstar down the road. Long way to go of course.

 

[thebeernerd]

For me, Yegorov is clearly the #1 prospect in the org heading into next season. There's no justification for Silayev aside from draft position.

Maybe that flips after next season or 4 years from now. Both goalies and particularly large dmen have very unpredictable dev curves, but right now it's obviously Yegorov. Ridiculous season and passed the eye test even prior to BU. He's only 19......with his talent/composure/athleticism and that frame, he could be a superstar down the road. Long way to go of course.

He immediately endeared himself to me when he got that weird penalty on a rulebook technicality because he went out too early to soak up the boos from the BC crowd. Insane hater energy is always welcome in NJ.

 

[The Wumpus]

When Silayev gets a nickname like Big Mike he'll have a case. Until then Big Mike is #1 in my eyes

Tony Silvio