WarriorofTime
Registered User
- Jul 3, 2010
- 30,942
- 19,789
It is mostly cyclical. The Russian percentage of NHL players has ranged from 3.6 % - 6.6 % since the 04/05 Lockout and then shortly thereafter the RSL was replaced by the KHL.
The type of the best player produced is going to come and go with relatively low numbers like that. At one point there were no goaltenders, then no defensemen, now no centers [although this one has a bit of an external factor, many Russian kids grow up playing Center/Wing interchangeably, and in Canada they put all the best kids as Centers, so at NHL level it makes more sense for the Russian Forwards that make it there to play Wing because there is a plethora of Canadians that played exclusively Center, compared to the Russian kid who played both].
Here are 18 Russian Defensemen that were drafted at some point in the first four rounds the last five drafts, which comes out to about 3-4 per year. It's a bit of a numbers game in terms of which and how many can turn into high level NHL D.
2024:
Anton Silayev - R1,P10
Matevi Shuravain - R3,P97
Alexander Siryatsky - R4,P124
2023:
Dmitry Simashev - R1,P6
Mikhail Gulyaev - R1,P31
Bogdan Konyushkov - R4,P110
2022:
Pavel Mintyukov - R1,P10
Artem Duda - R2,36
Daniil Orlov - R4,P110
Arseni Koromyslov - R4,P120
2021:
Daniil Chayka - R2P38
Artyom Grushnikov - R2P48
Kirill Kirsanov - R3P84
Dmitry Kostenko - R3P87
Vladislav Lukashevich - R4P120
2020:
Shakir Mukhamadullin - R1P20
Yan Kuznetsov - R2P50
Alexander Nikishin - R3P69
The type of the best player produced is going to come and go with relatively low numbers like that. At one point there were no goaltenders, then no defensemen, now no centers [although this one has a bit of an external factor, many Russian kids grow up playing Center/Wing interchangeably, and in Canada they put all the best kids as Centers, so at NHL level it makes more sense for the Russian Forwards that make it there to play Wing because there is a plethora of Canadians that played exclusively Center, compared to the Russian kid who played both].
Here are 18 Russian Defensemen that were drafted at some point in the first four rounds the last five drafts, which comes out to about 3-4 per year. It's a bit of a numbers game in terms of which and how many can turn into high level NHL D.
2024:
Anton Silayev - R1,P10
Matevi Shuravain - R3,P97
Alexander Siryatsky - R4,P124
2023:
Dmitry Simashev - R1,P6
Mikhail Gulyaev - R1,P31
Bogdan Konyushkov - R4,P110
2022:
Pavel Mintyukov - R1,P10
Artem Duda - R2,36
Daniil Orlov - R4,P110
Arseni Koromyslov - R4,P120
2021:
Daniil Chayka - R2P38
Artyom Grushnikov - R2P48
Kirill Kirsanov - R3P84
Dmitry Kostenko - R3P87
Vladislav Lukashevich - R4P120
2020:
Shakir Mukhamadullin - R1P20
Yan Kuznetsov - R2P50
Alexander Nikishin - R3P69
