Evan Rawal
In a poll conducted by ESPN a few months back, players and executives around the league voted on the best goaltenders in the NHL. The results? Four of the top nine just happened to be Russian goalies, one of which just helped his team win the Stanley Cup. It seems they at least know how to develop top flight netminders.
Did the Avalanche find the “next one” in the 2024 NHL Draft? After leading his team to a Gagarin Cup and stonewalling NHL players in a charity game over the weekend, hype seems to be at an all-time high for Colorado’s second round pick, Ilya Nabokov.
“But the real MVP was the MVP of the last KHL playoffs. Thanks to his saves, the team of the Russian league reached the end of the regular time and did not lose to more star rivals,” Sport24’s Dmitry Yerkalov wrote this weekend. “In a year, the whole NHL will get to know Nabokov.”
To his credit, the 21 year old is downplaying everything about the game. He knows that everyone wasn’t going full speed.
“The guys played against us half their strength, so it was not possible to know the NHL completely,” he said after the match.
Nabokov is following a similar development path to that of Sergei Bobrovsky. After being passed over in three drafts, Colorado took him 38th overall this year, making him the oldest player taken at 21 years old. Bobrovsky hit his stride as a 20/21 year old in the KHL, which is why he went undrafted. Ilya Sorokin and Igor Shesterkin were third and fourth round picks respectively, so draft position doesn’t necessarily matter, especially as teams seem to be steering clear of taking goalies high in the draft these days.
After the charity match, Nabokov got to meet the 35 year old Bobrovsky, fresh off a Stanley Cup win.
“I really want to be as professional as Sergei Bobrovsky. He knows how to win, many people look up to him,” he said.
Nabokov’s MHL numbers were great, but it was some slight changes to his technique and the jump to the KHL that put him on the radar this year.
“His stance (has) completely changed from today to back then,” Hockey Prospect’s Head Scout Jerome Berube said of Nabokov, comparing how he plays now to when he was first draft eligible. “He made himself look really small in net, and looked nothing like an NHL goalie. I’m glad he met a goalie coach that made him change his goalie stance, because he had no chance to play in the NHL with that (0ld) stance.”
Nabokov has proven to be a case study for scouts, and proof that goaltending is a very difficult position to scout.
“What you can learn from Ilya Nabokov is just because you see a 5’6″ crouching panther on the ice surface who looks like a Junior goalie, doesn’t mean he actually is one, because he’s going to modify his set stance when he gets to the professional ranks. (That’s) exactly what he’s done,” Hockey Prospect’s Brad Allen said.
So what has he changed?
“The first thing he did was pull himself way up higher, so when he’s in standing position, he stands much taller, ” he said. “The second thing he did was broaden himself out, so he presents very wide, which he has to.”
I asked Pavel Francouz last month why Russia is able to develop so many good goaltenders, and he mentioned the coaching goalies get over there. Wanting to learn a bit more, I asked someone close to the situation on what changed and why.
“Not a lot of top teams had a goalie coach at all just about 20 years ago,” they told me. “(That) something that Vladislav Tretyak was actively promoting.”
That’s not the case anymore.
“A lot of good ones are out there working on a different levels, including the juniors and younger,” they told me.
There really wasn’t much doubt that Nabokov was headed back to the KHL for a year, but after the game over the weekend, he confirmed it, and so did his coach.
“For the season, yes (he will stay),” his coach said. “Then it’s a matter of management.”
It will also be up to the player. Nabokov’s agent has hinted that the NHL is a real possibility in 2025-26, but right now, that’s not the focus of the Avalanche draft pick.
“While it’s all in the future, there’s no point in thinking about (the NHL),” he said. “Time will tell. My goal is to win the second Gagarin Cup with Magnitka, I’m preparing for it.”