I think this was an excellent pick. Top 4 Dman in the second best league in the world. Only 21 years old? Yeah. Reality is if we drafted with a late first an 18 year old Defenseman that was playing top 4 minutes in the KHL and producing by the time he was 21 years old we would be thrilled. This is an excellent pick by Al Murray.
By no means I'm saying he will be an NHL'r but the fact that SKA picked him up and the season he had are very good signs towards his future
But is he going to playing time? Groshev, Shalagin, Semykin are all either in the minors or making a career of watching their teammates while sitting on the bench.
“Daniil we watched for a number of years now. Daniil came over as an 18 year old. Before the world juniors Russia brings a team over in November and they play exhibition games against an all star team from the WHL, OHL, and QMJHL. They play 2 games against each of those and hockey Canada uses those games to evaluate players to bring to their world junior camp. Russia uses these games to evaluate who they want to bring to their world junior camp. Daniil has impressed us since then and we’ve continued to follow him. We’ve talked about defenseman needing to mature a little bit more, well he took a big step this year. He’s an older player. He’s got a little more time left on his contract in Russia. We’re in no hurry. If we had taken a college player at the point, he’s going to go away for 2 or 3 years. If Daniil’s another couple of years before he comes to the American Hockey League, it’s no different than taking a college player in our opinion."
"He’s got good skating, good puck moving. His points increased this year in the KHL, which is outside of the national hockey league, the top teams in the KHL are on par basically with the American Hockey League teams. That’s a real good development league for an older player like this. Not necessarily for an 18 or 17 year old. But Daniil’s taken a big step and we’ll continue to monitor him. He can’t come over for any of our stuff in the summer time because the Russian teams will be starting up, but hopefully sooner or later. He knows that we’re interested. He was pretty excited to get the call. He thought he was too old. Like he had been through this a few times. He knew he was still eligible to be drafted but he’s thinking 'nobodies going to draft me so I guess I’ll just keep plugging away here and hopefully catch somebody's eye when I'm 23-24.' But we were on him and he was very happy to be selected.”
"(He's probably thinking) 'I’m playing in the Russian KHL, teams are looking, but I’m an older guy. Out of sight, out of mind. Im not going to the world junior, Im not going to the U-18s ,so I don’t have the profile of some of these other guys, but I can make a nice living in Russia, and Im treated well here, Russia’s home, so it’s a good league.' But they all want to come to the National Hockey League. They want to see if they can play. The good Russian players, and he’s a good Russian player, want to challenge themselves in the National Hockey League."
He still has a year left on his KHL contractBelieve his contract is over with Dynamo. Any chance he signs with Lightning or Springfield?
Didn't realize that. EP had it as 2023-24.He still has a year left on his KHL contract