2: Ivan Demidov - SKA-1946 St. Petersburg - W
The 1B of the draft, I wholeheartedly believe that Ivan Demidov is an equal talent with Celebrini that deserves consideration when drafting first.
Playing with pace and having explosive acceleration are intrinsically linked. The sharper your acceleration curve is, the more it forces defenders to launch their momentum towards you, giving you the advantage to use that against them in a multitude of ways. The inverse to this principle is deceleration, how fast a player can stop on a dime. Being able to stop your momentum almost immediately while another player is barreling towards you with everything they have is one of the best ways to create that same advantage that pure acceleration gives you. The best skaters in the world are the ones that ebb and flow between acceleration and deceleration to make their foes dance to their whims. It’s one of the key traits that leads to a successful delay game, where players in open-ice slow down to buy time, causing all the lanes and pockets of space on the ice to shift.
I am exceptionally high on Demidov’s movement, to an extent that it’s difficult to express just how good I think his mobility is without it coming across as hyperbolic. The skating isn’t flawless. There are moments where you want to see him explode off his outside edges and that burst isn’t there. You can see bits and pieces of his game that just won’t work smoothly against the NHL’s best athletes the way it does against MHL competition. Given his game is dependent on mobility above all else, especially as he loves to routinely weaponize the good ol’ mohawk stance, I can see where some may be concerned.
Where people have zero concern with Demidov is the outrageous skill level. Indisputably the best hands in the draft, it seems as if no possible combination of awkward angling and contorted body positioning exists that inhibits Demidov from pulling off some ludicrous shit with the puck. He’s a freestyle artist in 1v1’s, the type to leave players utterly embarrassed as they’re on the receiving end of yet another highlight reel play. The skill level demands so much respect that players simply cannot approach him the same way as they do others. I wouldn’t say he’s like Patrick Kane stylistically, but I’m left with that same impression that your only method of consistent defense is to overwhelm him with physical pressure. Playing into his game will simply leave you cooked.
So you have a player with tremendous skill blending it in with wild, deceptive movement. Watch him once and you see this kid has no equal this year when it comes to attacking in-motion. The only projection concern is that of his explosivity, but I’m not entirely convinced he’s going to be limited by this. The fundamental pillar of Demidov’s game is his deceleration. Demidov’s brakes are lightning quick, as he’s already changing his attack angle by the time the defender can even react. Combine that with the handling ability and you can see Ivan chain attacks together through multiple defensive layers that would leave you breathless. If what we see today is the peak of Demidov’s explosiveness, then you still have a hell of a skater who will be able to chain together plays in the NHL. Any improvements with explosiveness and Demidov inches closer to the type of attacker fans dream of — a relentless force that bobs and weaves through player after player, chaining moves together that only a few who ever played the game had the talent to pull off.