Prospect Info: With the #196 pick, Minnesota selects Dmitry Sokolov

[DANOZ28]

i cut him some slack since hes the only Russian on the team , i think he has significant upside.

 

[Mancini79]

Vanek was a major talent.

Still impresses me in DET.

 

[Nsjohnson]

And that in itself is a Red flag. There is a ton of players who will do ANYTHING to make the NHL. Most coaches are looking to win. If Sokolov gave them a better chance to win by him playing, then he'd be in there.

Having said that, I don't think that is the case. I don't see a young player uprooting himself from his home country, then living up in Sudbury and going through the junior hockey grind, unless he "wants it". Maybe he just doesn't know how to work hard. Maybe he just isn't very smart. You don't have to be a genius to be a good hockey player, but you do have to have street( or rink) smarts.

Also players have confidence issues. Players do get introverted over certain things. This may sound silly, but he may have gotten really introverted into the fact he was overweight. He may not feel very confident or he may feel like he doesn't have the trust of his group around him.

Point being, he just needs to hammer it out and be persistent. It would be easy for him to go home and play in the KHL in a hurry if he isn't getting called up over the next couple of years.

Sokolov only has a skating issue as far as his game goes. Well, maybe defense too. But with skating he will get better at D.

 

[57special]

I don't even think that he is a bad skater. He actually looks to have decent speed once he gets going. It's more like he is slow to go, or doesn't always go full out. Ovechkin was accused of the same thing. Parise will never be.

If a guy scores goals, though, he gets some rope. So far he hasn't lit the AHL on fire, but he hasn't gotten the most, or the best TOI in order to do so.