Montreal Canadiens Top Prospects Countdown: #23 Alexander Gordin

Montreal Canadiens general manager has compiled a long list of prospects. We are counting down the top 30.

Montreal Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin has been building through the draft for the past three years. It has resulted in the Habs having one of the deepest group of prospects in the league.

So, we have been counting down the Canadiens Top 30 prospects.

This started on November 1 with the 30th spot going to Jack Gorniak. The 29th spot went to Jacob LeGuerrier, the 28th place was taken by Otto Leskinen, 27th went to Rafael Harvey-Pinard, 26th was Jack Smith, 25th was Jacob Olofsson and 24th was Lukas Vejdemo.

That brings us to 23rd on the countdown and we have ranked Alexander Gordin in that position. Gordin went undrafted in 2019 and was a late round pick of the Habs in 2020, but that doesn’t mean he lacks talent.

The Russian winger has a penchant for getting open in the slots, and his best skill is his ability to find the back of the net in a hurry when he has an opportunity. It takes him no time to get off a terrific release and he has pinpoint accuracy with his wrist and snap shots from the slot. The talented winger was ranked pretty low for the 2019 draft, but had a fantastic 2019-20 campaign which obviously caught the eye of the Canadiens.

Gordin was one of the best players in Russia’s best Junior league last season. He scored 39 goals and 68 points in 58 games for St Petersburg in the MHL. This put him 6th in the league in points and he was second in the league in goals.

The 19 year old has decent size at 6’1″ and just under 200 pounds. He isn’t known as a big bruiser though, as he leans heavily on his shot and offensive instincts to make plays and not so much on physicality.

Gordin is off to a pretty similar start to this season as we saw from him last year. In eight Junior games, he has six goals and 11 points. He has earned a call up to the KHL for one game and played six contests in the VHL which is the Russian version on the AHL. In those six games he has two goals and he was held scoreless in his lone KHL contest.

The KHL is not a league known for welcoming teenagers, so even getting called up for one game this early in the season is a nice accomplishment for Gordin. It shows he is clearly on the big clubs radar and they are impressed with his skills.

How well those skills can translate to the pro level, even in Russia, are yet to be determined. We will have to be patient to see when Gordin gets a real opportunity in the KHL. The Canadiens don’t need to rush to sign him to a contract as they retain a Russian drafted player’s rights pretty much for as long as they desire.

So, the Canadiens can play the waiting game with Gordin. He has intriguing skill, especially for a player taken with the 171st overall pick in the 2020 NHL Draft. For now, expect to see him continue to pile up numbers in the Russian Junior league and then transition to their top minor league system next season.

Gordin is a prospect who is definitely worth keeping an eye on. His ability to score goals is a fantastic trait to have in a young prospect. We just might have to wait a while before we see him take a shot in North America.