Let’s face it: Exotic Russian skill still tantalizes National Hockey League GMs. Whether it comes in a lanky, puck-moving package like Mikhail Grigorenko, or in that of a fire hydrant-shaped Nail Yakupov, he of the soccer player’s legs and cannon blast off the right-wing boards. Russian talent still lures—despite the inherent baggage.
While Grigorenko and Yakupov scuffle through their second NHL seasons with a combined one goal and four points through 24 games, 18-year-old rookie Valeri Nichushkin (0-2-2 in 11 games) is barely surviving in Dallas. All three have watched at least one game from the press box as a healthy scratch this season.
Through 60 pro games, Yakupov is very much a work in progress. This was the candid assessment of him by former NHL defenceman Igor Kravchuk, scouting for Team Russian prior to Sochi: “If he’s not going to change his game, then he has no future (in the NHL). From what I see, his team game is really, really poor. He has absolutely no defence.”
One of four teenagers in a hopeless Sabres lineup, Grigorenko is still miles away from being an effective NHL centreman—as almost every 19-year-old is when thrust into the NHL. “I saw Grigorenko last week,” an Eastern scout said. “He’s in over his head.” Nichushkin is trying to learn the art of playing without the puck at the NHL level against men 10 years his senior, a mighty tall order.
Neither Yakupov nor Grigorenko can be assigned to the American Hockey League—as draftees out of Canadian Hockey League, both would both have to return to junior if they can’t cut it with their NHL clubs. This is where the coddling comes in, because despite the fact that neither player can jump to the Kontinental Hockey League while under an NHL contract, they certainly could after next season when their entry-level deals expire. “I would be scared to send him down too,” a Western-based scout said of Yakupov. “I’ve heard he’s a kid who would go back. I wouldn’t risk it.”
Nichushkin, however, is eligible for the AHL. A month or two on the farm would be a perfect way to assimilate him on the smaller surface, to a game played in a dramatically different fashion than the one he grew up playing. But there is one problem: he can only be sent down on a conditioning assignment. In order to get him to Dallas this season, the Stars agreed to a European assignment clause stipulating that if Nichushkin doesn’t play, he goes back home to Dynamo Moscow.
“They always have that KHL threat to put over your head, and there’s nothing you can do about that. Every team has had guys like that. They come, they want to big be stars, and sometimes they disappear.” — NHL scout
Clauses like that one—along with the threat and lure of the KHL—may account for a steady decline in Russian-born players on NHL rosters. In 2003-04 there were 60 Russian-born players used by NHL teams. Today, there are 21. Injured Alexei Emelin, signed to a four-year extension on Thursday, would be No. 22.
You’ll scarcely find an NHL executive who believes a young Russian player is well served by returning to the KHL, which is why they put up with a little more from those players. Like in Edmonton, where Yakupov greeted his two-game stint in the press box with this quote: “I love playing with the puck. I really don’t like skating all the time, and forechecking, and hitting somebody every shift. I don’t think it’s my game.”
Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised when a young Russian speaks from the heart. After all, we draft these artists out of a game completely dissimilar to our own, then bring them over and tell them, “Don’t carry the puck so much. And when you get it, chip it in. Then go in hard with the body and try to get it back. Hit people whenever you can.” NHL teams play NHL systems, which break down if one player does not adhere to it. So, in the end, the coach’s game plan is bigger than the player—no matter how much the GM is willing to put up with.
Alexander Ovechkin figured it out in the NHL. So did Pavel Datsyuk, Evgeni Malkin and many others. Nikolai Zherdev never did, and Alexander Radulov never wanted to. Will Grigorenko, Nichushkin and Yakupov be stars in the NHL one day, or the KHL? As the old Russian proverb goes, “This is written with pitchfork on the flowing water.”
Translation: Nobody knows.