The Fall of Nail Yakupov

[Limp Dekes]

This one bothered me a lot more than regular Oiler busts. I wanted him to succeed so damn bad. All his interviews he seemed likeable so maybe that’s why I don’t know

Best interview of all time.

 

[CantStoptheBrock]

As a Canuck fan, I would always pray the Oilers would pass it to Yakupov to ruin whatever they were doing. Was sad to see him leave. Thankfully they acquired a new Yakupov for me to pray they pass it to in Puljujaarvi.

 

[kevsh]

What's odd, but perhaps expected, is that all these scouts missed his many shortcomings (assuming at least some were noticeable before he was drafted). If he only had raw skill but weak almost everywhere else, were there any scouts/analysts that saw that and rated him anything but the #1 prospect? Scouts that said "yeah, he's good but really needs work on X,Y an Z".

This seems to still happen, even with such easy access to game video going back to some players' early teens, armchair scouts and dozens of sites breaking prospects down in granular detail.

The "questions" about top-rated prospects seem to be answered by "he'll figure it out", which sounds more like wishful thinking than an honest assessment. In this year's draft class there seems to be some of that talk about Byfield, less so the others. That he's got some work to do but his size, speed and raw talent make him impossible to pass on. Either the Kings or the Sens are likely going to be the ones that find out.

 

[x Tame Impala]

Really only saw him the games he played against my team. He looked like the real-life version of a dude in EASHL that only cares about his own snipes and dangles. Like he was playing for his personal highlight reel and didn’t want to play into an actual system.

Maybe that worked with Sarnia but in the NHL there’s maybe 10 guys in the whole league who are talented enough to do that, and Yakupov wasn’t one of them.

 

[BrickNHL]

Work smarter not harder, so much wasted energy when he was on the ice.

Still one of my favourite players though, I loved watching him on the Aves that year.

 

[Lebowski]

I think it’s easy to sell him a bit short in hindsight but at the same time he performed very well in his D+1 season both in the KHL and the NHL.

I think he’s a very good example of how poor development can impact a player’s career.

 

[Ceremony]

Nice guy. Fun to watch. No idea what he was doing.



Great shot.

 

[93LEAFS]

He was never as good as hyped, but to end up with what Yakupov ended up as without some career-altering patch of injuries like Patrik Stefan, it is a complete it takes a meeting of a bunch of massive issues. The others were he was absolutely terribly developed and coached, seems to have suffered a massive loss of confidence which could never be refound in key development years. With guys that highly thought of, sometimes they just don't have the IQ, but you can usually harness their talent into some sort of decent 3rd liner such as the Sam Bennett situation in Calgary or Virtanen in Vancouver (although Virtanen has raw physical tools which others lack like Chad Kilger). Outside of the clearly elite talent that was McDavid and Hall, who were essentially sure things, and the exception that is Draisaitl, they had clear trouble getting other guys to reach something approaching their ceiling with Gagner, G. Reinhart (although, Isles eat part of that), Puljujarvi is a wait and see, but he sure isn't trending well). RNH is still a good player, but hasn't approached close to what people expected out of him from him at 17 and 18. Nurse is performing about par for where he was picked, not above or below it. Klefbom is probably there best non-Draisaitl development story. Maybe some of these younger guys will change the trend in Yamamoto (I'm not going to put too much weight into a very small sample size from this year playing with Drai against previous NHL and AHL play) and Ethan Bear (whose had a promising start to his career). Tyler Benson should be a good player for where he was picked if he can become a consistent 3rd liner. So, maybe some of their more recent draft pick developing under the new regime (while drafted under Chiarelli) will provide the depth they will need to consistently contend with their two high-end top pieces.

 

[Breakers]

Ray Ferraro expanded on his original quote about Bee's, where he said he had no idea when to take his foot off the gas pedal, and just take a breath to observe the ice and let plays or coverages develop.
Essentially saying do you think Good Players jump on the ice and start skating 110% max right away for the entire shift. Well Yakupov did.

 

[The Nuge]

I suspect he's mostly just going through the motions now to earn a paycheck.

He repeatedly said he had no desire to play in the KHL, so I’d suspect that’s probably the case.

I can't help but think of Nikita Filatov.

Not really. Filatov didn’t want to put the effort in. Yak put too much effort in.

Work smarter not harder, so much wasted energy when he was on the ice.

Still one of my favourite players though, I loved watching him on the Aves that year.

It definitely endeared him to the fans of his teams. You could criticize him for a few things, but never his work ethic.

Ray Ferraro expanded on his original quote about Bee's, where he said he had no idea when to take his foot off the gas pedal, and just take a breath to observe the ice and let plays or coverages develop.
Essentially saying do you think Good Players jump on the ice and start skating 110% max right away for the entire shift. Well Yakupov did.

This is where coaching failed him. Not only did Eakins not do anything about that, but he benched him when he played well (so he could observe and think about how well he’d played), and benched him when he played poorly (so he could observe and learn). The only way was for him to go out and play ok. And when you’re playing flat out every moment you’re on the ice, you’re probably not playing many average games. It just got to the point where it looked like he didn’t know what to do when he got on the ice.

Under Krueger, he was a flawed, but electric player whose offense made up for his lack of defense. After Eakins, he was a flawed player who was lost at both ends of the ice

 

[DudeWhereIsMakar]

Fail Yakupov was just ranked too high. I found he had the tools, but was over his head and couldn't fit in with the pace of the game. The NHL was too small for him in terms of the way he played.

 

[Bounces R Way]

Really no good way to put it, he was dumber than a box of rocks.

 

[McDavidCrushedLarkin]

I always thought he was a shit skater. Looked like he had issues doing basic crossovers.

 

[Langdon Alger]

You might say Nail failed.

I’ll show myself out.

 

[Stephen]

If Yakupov was a late second or third round pick, had the humility of a second or third rounder, came over 3-4 years after the draft and put up the kind if seasons he did, no one would really complain. But as a first overall? Crappy little player.

 

[oobga]

Kid had a good shot, and was starting to get into a groove by the end of the shortened season. Clearly he had loads of holes in his game that he needed to fix, but at least he had something useful.

Then he goes on to head coaches that treat the PP like a carrot they have to dangle to motivate players and basically never gets a chance to 1-time a puck for 3-4 years (the coaches put up some pretty brutal PP's in that time, but oh well, the carrot dangle was more important than the PP scoring apparently). Shooting skill eroded from never really using it in real game situations for years, and confidence gone because he never came close to even figuring out what these coaches expected from him.

He was probably always going to be a mediocre middle 6 forward at the absolute best. If he got more coaches like Krueger who bend over backwards to try to build the kids confidence up and shelter him. Eakins and McLellan were the opposite of coaches he needed to keep his head above water in the NHL. There was really nothing useful left in his game by the time he left the Oilers.

 

[The Winter Soldier]

Had he been in any other draft he would not gone 1st overall, he may not even gone top 3. The 2012 draft was one of the weakest up top in decades. There are many good players in it, but it was certainly not top quality. Probably put pressure on him. We will never know how he would have fared had he went in a deeper draft. Didn't think he was special predraft, but he certainly had the skill set to play in the NHL I thought.

 

[Sol]

How often does this topic come up

 

[7even]

Best interview of all time.

As a Canadian that doesn't bother me at all. He's a teenager and he's feeling himself and then they went on to lose to Sweden iirc. Everybody gets to learn that lesson at some point.

 

[7even]

Everyone always flaming the 2012 draft but it really wasn't all that bad imo

 

[Suxnet]

How often does this topic come up

A lot of experts of hindsight want to share their opinions.

 

[Nothingbutglass]

The interesting part is the total miss by scouting. Was there any team that wouldn't have picked him in the top 5 if they had the pick? Shouldn't it be obvious if he was dumb as a box of rocks or his OHL game wouldn't translate?

 

[These Are The Days]

It was a perfect storm.

1. You had a guy with stereotypical Russian bad habits that were not addressed in Sarnia and he scored in bunches by out-skilling his teenage opposition
2. Lived and died by his confidence. I'm also about 98% sure he has ADD
3. Dallas Eakins was tasked with reshaping the Oilers and to get them to stop losing and was so severe towards Yakupov it destroyed said confidence
4. Not only did Eakins' poor coaching NOT resolve any bad habits, but it also led to Yakupov not having a clue what to do at any given time and you could watch on a given shift he had no idea what was expected of him
5. Said "out-skilling" never really worked for him and the post-Eakins adjustment often became to just park out in front of the net for tap ins by the end of his Oilers tenure. It wasn't sexy but it worked pretty well for him.

This isn't a guy who suddenly woke up one day and was dumber than a box of rocks. He thrived before and after Eakins in his time as an Oiler. Once he got hurt in Carolina that was it for him. He knew his goose was cooked because at that time he could not afford an injury. His career was on life support because he was now playing for Todd McLellan -who had no reason to remain loyal. Once he got to St. Louis Kenny Hitchcock didn't give a shit and didn't try with Yakupov AT ALL and by the time he reached Denver he was damaged goods with the same confidence issues and bad habits the last time a coach tried to help him with either was Todd Nelson.

Coaching makes all the difference in the world. Steven Stamkos ended his rookie season with 16 goals 8 assists 24 points in his last 26 games and a TOI of about 19 minutes and even had his first career hat-trick for good measure. When he started with Barry Melrose (who proceeded to give him worse than Yakupov treatment) he had 2 goals 4 points and 11 minutes TOI through his first 16 career games. There wasn't a damn thing he was doing wrong. His coach was an idiot.


Yakupov on the other hand.... had he stuck around in Edmonton he would've been a serviceable 20 goal scorer who maybe gets like 40 points a year playing on McDavid's wing who frustrated the hell out of everyone because by then it would've been too late to hope for any better.

 

[njdevils1982]

Best interview of all time.

these two are better

 

[SmoggyTwinkles]

How often does this topic come up

3 times a year? just guessing.

Nail Yak bombed hard. 1st overall. Would be a nightmare to any other team that didn't get to draft how many times in that range?

Oilers fans can shrug it off though because they got McDavid and Draisatl seems pretty good too.