Prospect Info: Shakir Mukhamadullin (#20 pick - 2020 draft)

[Blender]

Lol that JD Burke guy deleted his tweet saying Mukhamadullin’s was awful last night.

I'm surprised someone didn't run and post it in the mainboard thread and ignore any praise for this game.

 

[NJ Fan 12]

Saw the score without seeing the game last night and then watched the game today expecting to see a horror show.

Instead, with the exception of an ill-timed pinch and losing a 50/50 puck during the one PK he was again impressive moving the puck and played a strong two-way game. Most impressive to me was his ability to receive passes and immediately move the puck accurately and to proper places.

To a lesser extent, I thought Gritsyuk was noticeable in positive ways albeit in limited ice time. Coincidentally, both were factors in the Russian power play goal (disallowed).

 

[GeNeXt]

Marek Malik 2.0

 

[Auto Pilot]

Some how this is considered getting beat wide. Some how his defense partner, 6, gets zero criticism for a bad hit that didn’t even take Lundell out of the play which resulted in him getting to the net and not being covered and tipping in the goal.
Of course Rachel jumps in to say why this is bad defense. The funny thing is the sort of defense Mookie is playing here is the type of shit her hero Hynes preached if you remember how many times our d would wind up almost at the red line.

To me getting beat wide would mean getting burned on the outside and never regaining some position on the puck carrier, which is not what happened here. He didn’t get the puck away from him but I’m genuinely convinced some of the elite prospect and dobber prospect people are just biased and daft as shit.

https://twitter.com/hockey_robinson/status/1346602699811221504?s=21

 

[Guadana]

 

[Mgd31]

Don't show that to the mainboard or certain "prospect evaluators" on Twitter.

 

[Zippy316]

It’s truly remarkable how quickly people judge prospects or criticize prospects like they’re not all projects.

Let the kid develop. He was clearly taken as a project for a team that is crossing their fingers he comes into the league as a Chara-lite whenever he’s ready. When you’re watching him you see that, his size is a huge asset, he makes surprisingly good reads and plays for a big man, and you also see some of that awkwardness that comes with his size and inexperience.

Seems like with the bigger guys there’s people who jump on them because they’re just so noticeable in awkward ways. They don’t look like your average player and people take that as a negative for some reason. I saw a good deal of people criticizing Soderblom too and I thought he was phenomenal in his role.

 

[StevenToddIves]

He's like Sergei Federov, a Russian forward that was converted to a defenseman.

Edit: I have never once spelled Fedorov's name correctly, but at least I didn't call him Dan Blackburn.

I always spelled that "Bluckbarn".

 

[StevenToddIves]

Some how this is considered getting beat wide. Some how his defense partner, 6, gets zero criticism for a bad hit that didn’t even take Lundell out of the play which resulted in him getting to the net and not being covered and tipping in the goal.
Of course Rachel jumps in to say why this is bad defense. The funny thing is the sort of defense Mookie is playing here is the type of shit her hero Hynes preached if you remember how many times our d would wind up almost at the red line.

To me getting beat wide would mean getting burned on the outside and never regaining some position on the puck carrier, which is not what happened here. He didn’t get the puck away from him but I’m genuinely convinced some of the elite prospect and dobber prospect people are just biased and daft as shit.
https://twitter.com/hockey_robinson/status/1346602699811221504?s=21

I actually love Cam Robinson and correspond with him quite often about prospects, but again I have to disagree with him here. If someone wants to see what it means for a defenseman to be "beaten wide", just watch every shift of Vasily Podkolzin posterizing Philip Broberg in the Russia vs. Sweden game. There are 5 or 6 great examples -- better than this -- and the hockey writers were not exactly lining up to post it on Twitter as "how not to play defense". It's a bit hypocritical, if you ask me.

 

[Blender]

"Spider graphs" *shudders*

I prefer radars.

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

I watched about half his games and it's insane to me the hate this guy gets. Just absolutely insane. Every single thing that might possibly be construed as a mistake is amplified. Just no perspective in order to find any and all bits of information to confirm biases. Embarrassing.

 

[Guadana]

In such circumstances, all that is required of Shakir is to be resistant to criticism. If he has a character - it will help him in many ways. To be defenseman in NHl to be a hockey player that was wrongly biased.

 

[FooteBahl]

Pronman had Muk and Holtz as his biggest disappointments in an athletic article...

 

[R8Devs]

Pronman had Muk and Holtz as his biggest disappointments in an athletic article...

nah, one out of the 15 scouts he polled had them on their list for disappointments. neither had multiple votes. but he didn't have either on his personal list

'What follows is my personal interpretation of the standouts, pleasant surprises and disappointments of the tournament. This is not related to the scout poll above. If I didn’t mention a player it’s reasonable to conclude I didn’t think they were notably good or poor relative to expectations.'

and neither holtz or mukhamadullin were there

 

[StevenToddIves]

Pronman had Muk and Holtz as his biggest disappointments in an athletic article...

Pronman did not say this -- it was one of the "scouts" he polled. Keep in mind, some of these people may be idiots. One of them voted for Broberg as the best D in the tournament.

 

[Devils731]

I watched about half his games and it's insane to me the hate this guy gets. Just absolutely insane. Every single thing that might possibly be construed as a mistake is amplified. Just no perspective in order to find any and all bits of information to confirm biases. Embarrassing.

One of the goals he was most blamed for was, in my eyes, almost 0% his fault so I definitely was viewing things different than others.

 

[Blender]

Pronman did not say this -- it was one of the "scouts" he polled. Keep in mind, some of these people may be idiots. One of them voted for Broberg as the best D in the tournament.

LOL what? I understand that he may have an injury that was limiting him and would explain his performance, but he was still downright dreadful in the tournament. He shouldn't have even played a few of their games he was so bad.

 

[StevenToddIves]

LOL what? I understand that he may have an injury that was limiting him and would explain his performance, but he was still downright dreadful in the tournament. He shouldn't have even played a few of their games he was so bad.

It's what @Guadana and @Jason MacIsaac and I keep saying -- these mediocre "draft analysts" will completely get it wrong with strong, vocal takes on certain players, and then instead of admitting their mistakes they double down on them even if all evidence is to the contrary.

This is absolutely sinful if you have any integrity, but it's done all the time. I have made many mistakes over the years -- as somebody who is relied upon to express pointed convictions and is imperfect, this is inevitable. Yet to me, the worst thing I can do is continue to be wrong. To me, it's better to admit where I was wrong, and then analyze my mistake in order to not repeat it the next time. I believe it's called learning.

Just three years ago, I had a tough draft in 2017 with forwards. I've always been a bit stronger at projecting defensemen, but I really dropped the ball with forwards in the 2017 draft. I ranked Nolan Patrick over Nico Hischier and Casey Mittelstadt over Elias Pettersson. But I really went to work in 2018 in order to correct some of my personal biases which I felt were bleeding into my prospect analysis and muddying them. If I were one of these "Mukmadullin Haters" I'd probably still be writing about how Nolan Patrick would have been a 100-point player but for injuries, and I'd still be writing that Hischier is overrated or whatever. I'd be trying to rationalize that Buffalo was ruining Mittelstadt and picking apart Pettersson film for any flaw I could find. Instead, I realized my screw-up and corrected it.

The end result is that my 2018 and 2019 mock drafts and prospect rankings are far closer to home than almost all of the big-name prospect writers. I don't see why these cynics in the prospect world don't want to improve. Do they think they are perfect and there is no need to be better? I don't know. I still drag myself over the coals for everything I get wrong. Was I too high on Tristen Robins last year to keep my credibility? Was I too hard on Jeremie Poirier considering his tremendous potential? I really beat myself up.

This is why it frustrates me to read some of these prospect writers. A guy who has seen Mukhamadullin twice and dismissed him will see the Devils drafted him far above the consensus and rip the pick. Then, when Mukhamadullin is clearly the #1 defenseman in. Russia's WJC plans, instead of going back to watch more film, they'll Tweet "what is Russia thinking, don't they know Mukhamadullin stinks?" Then, when Mukhamadullin is the best Russian on the ice in the first WJC game (prelim vs. Canada), they'll find the one bad play he made and Tweet it out. It goes the opposite for players they overrate. Though he is certainly talented, Philip Broberg was a player who was a complete disaster in the defensive zone in his draft year, and his hockey sense was questionable. But many draft writers falsely equate "being Swedish" with high hockey IQ, and ignore defensive miscues selectively for players they like. There's no contest that Broberg was the most disappointing player in the 2021 WJC -- he was truly abominable. Watch the film of the entire Russia game, I've never seen one player so thoroughly dominated by one other player like Podkolzin owned Broberg all game. Watch the film of Finland's game winning goal -- Broberg's lack of positioning, effort and anticipation on that -- incredibly crucial -- play is nothing short of pee-wee hockey. But "experts" who ranked Broberg 5th or 6th overall in a stacked 2019 draft -- ahead of studs like Zegras and Podkolzin and Cozens and Turcotte -- need to defend the fact that they weren't really paying attention to the actual player they over-ranked, but rather were ranking based on inane bias and "going along with the consensus".

Ultimately, truth itself becomes the victim, and we are all victimized by this. We watch a Russia v. Sweden game where Mukhamadullin is very good and Broberg is a disaster, we all see it in front of our eyes, but still the writers who ranked Broberg #6 and Mukhamadullin #92 and praised one pick while relentlessly shredding the other tell us that Mukhamadullin was completely awful and Broberg played well.

And thus, WE are the victims. Because while guys who do this intensively like @Guadana and @Jason MacIsaac and myself can laugh and say "that writer is completely wrong", some younger, less educated hockey fans can be taken for a ride by these poor takes. And that's just wrong.

 

[Guttersniped]

Pronman had Muk and Holtz as his biggest disappointments in an athletic article...

No, he actually doesn’t? He gives his all-star ballot and then he polled 15 NHL scouts for their All-Star ballots plus their biggest surprises and disappointments. His All-Star ballot: Cozens, Stuetzle, Zegras, Byram, Heinola and Levi.

With the 15 other All-Star ballots he said it most the same except for “the odd vote” for Raymond (?), Peterka and Elias.

There was a bigger mix of different defensemen getting votes, including, and this is for @StevenToddIves, one lone All-Vote for Broberg.

And then he listed Biggest Surprises and three players got multiple votes: Niemela, Farinacci and Soderblum.

Three players got multiple votes for Biggest Disappointments: Askarov, Rossi and Byfield.

It’s true that both Holtz and Mukhamadullin were one of the remaining 8 players who received one vote for the biggest disappointments. (As did Broberg, so he was a disappointing All-Star.)

Pronman didn’t pick either of our prospects when he wrote blurbs about eight disappointing players. He wrote about: Byfield, Rossi, the Swedish top defensive pair of Bjornfot & Broberg, Quinn, Askarov, Holmstrom and Chinakhov.

 

[Emperoreddy]

And his actual 8 disappointments were good calls.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

 

[Blackjack]

He scored a goal from the 4th pairing? wow.

 

[britdevil]

Very impressive. Congrats Shakir!

 

[My3Sons]

So he does somewhat better from an offensive standpoint in the KHL than the WJC? That's sort of surprising. In any event, it's good to see him get going again for his KHL team.

 

[Davegarri]

So he does somewhat better from an offensive standpoint in the KHL than the WJC? That's sort of surprising. In any event, it's good to see him get going again for his KHL team.

He can only play on Olympic ice