Who Will the Montreal Canadiens Select in the First Round?
YAROSLAV ASKAROV. Omsk, RUS. . G. SKA St. Petersburg
This is the weird one: the goalie. If the Habs were to select Askarov with pick #9, he would be goaltender selected with the highest pick since 2005, when a current Hab went 5th overall. Just like with Spencer Knight last year, the Carey Price comparisons are abundant with Askarov in regards to his style and temperament. I watched him dominate the Hlinka-Gretzky (he allowed just 5 goals in 4 games and produced a .960 SV%), and I admired these exact qualities.
However, those who have only been exposed to the young Russian at the World Juniors may not be all that convinced, and I was surprised at the difference between his performances in the two national team tournaments; Askarov played five world junior games and posted a mediocre 2.77 GAA and a poor .877 SV%. These stats in no way scream “best goalie prospect since Price”, but it must be taken into account that these two tournaments make up just 9 of the 28 games he played this past season.
I will be honest, I was unable to watch any of his other 19 games, but the stat sheet gives a good enough idea of how he performed. He played the overwhelming majority of the season in the VHL, which is the KHL’s equivalent of the AHL. In Askarov’s 18 games with SKA St. Petersburg’s minor league affiliate, he posted a seemingly impressive .920 SV% and a 2.45 GAA. It is important to note, however, that goaltender stats are generally quite high in the VHL.
According to Quanthockey.com, 72 goaltenders played at least 14 VHL games this season, 44 of which posted a .920 SV% or higher, so it is not as though Askarov’s stats particularly stood out among those of all VHL goaltenders. The league’s top goaltender, by a fair margin too, was 22-year-old Vladislav Gross, who put up a .956 SV% and a 1.40 GAA in 25 games for Gornyak Uchaly; and even he struggled in his two KHL appearances posting a 5.16 GAA and a .812 SV% for Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg.
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This is just to say that Askarov’s numbers don’t at all jump off the page and that a more experienced goalie who played more games than him and utterly dominated Askarov’s own league struggled in the limited amount of KHL play he saw. However, in Askarov’s single KHL appearance, he thrived, unlike Gross, allowing just two goals on the 25 shots he encountered, giving him a .920 SV%.
The statistic that most supports Askarov’s case to be a high draft pick is that he is the only 17-year-old goalie to ever play more than 8 VHL games. The goalie who played 8 games was Pyotr Kochetkov, who was selected as an almost 20-year-old by the Carolina Hurricanes at 36th overall in last year’s NHL Entry Draft, and he had a .918 SV% in his 17-year-old season. Due to the extent of games Askarov played in the VHL as a 17-year-old, he could prove to be a special talent.
It is well known that goalies take longer to develop, with most top goaltenders only encountering regular NHL action 4-6 years after being drafted. This particular timeline could actually fit the Habs quite well, with Carey Price’s huge contract running for another 6 seasons. Despite Askarov’s 18 VHL games as a 17-year-old, I can’t say I’m fully convinced. Any team that selects him will be taking a big gamble; he may very well bust, but he could also be the steal of the draft and become the next star goaltender coming out of Russia.
It is important for scouting departments to balance risk and reward, and based on the other extremely talented players that would make for far safer picks that will inevitably be available to the team that selects ninth overall, I just wouldn’t feel comfortable selecting the goalie. It will be fascinating though to see just how high, or low, he goes in the draft because it could be anywhere between 5th and 35th overall, though the higher end of the range seems more likely at this moment in time.