Canadiens: Sergei Plotnikov’s Resurgence an Example of Demidov’s Potential and the Benefit of a Winning Environment

What more can be said about Montreal Canadiens prospect Ivan Demidov that hasn’t been said already?

At just 19 years old, Demidov has already secured his place as the No. 1 prospect in the Canadiens organization (and the NHL for that matter) with his play for SKA St. Petersburg, and is a player who’s offensive potential this city hasn’t seen since the likes of since Pierre Turgeon’s 96 point season in 1995-96. Unfortunately, because it was the 90s NHL, Habs management opted to trade Turgeon for a past-his-prime Shayne Corson and defenseman Murray Baron, both of whom lasted less than 4 seasons in Montreal whilst Turgeon was extremely productive in St. Louis until leaving for free agency in 2001.

Thankfully, everything GM Kent Hughes has done to this point hasn’t fallen in line with those past poor decisions, and one of these positive steps forward has been the selection of Demidov. When former GM Marc Bergevin was fired midway into the 2021-22 season, he left Hughes with a few good prospects he had managed to stumble into, the most important of those being Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield. While we all know how those two players' careers have fared to this point, Hughes has done a solid job of adding to that core. Jacob Fowler, Michael Hage, and Owen Beck have been developing nicely for the future, and Lane Hutson is helping the Canadiens in the immediacy, with Hutson’s play especially being one of the main reasons the Canadiens were in the playoff mix earlier to begin with.

Whether Montreal makes the postseason or not though (looking increasingly less likely now), their chances of being a contender should increase ten-fold with the addition of Demidov, and among the many who have noticed his potential and well, just ability at this point, is current SKA forward Sergei Plotnikov. For those familiar with a weirdly specific part of Pittsburgh Penguins and, to an extent, Arizona Coyotes history, Plotnikov’s name might sound very briefly familiar, as he was once a highly coveted European free agent coming out of Yaroslavl Lokomotiv. A power forward with decent size and scoring ability, the Penguins hoped Plotnikov could find chemistry with Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin, but things didn’t quite work out as they had hoped.