Didnt see too much today. Watched a little bit of the beginning of Barys / Novosibirsk just because it was the first game on. Barys have some former NHL/AHLers, including Jeremy Bracco. Sibir has the 2 Klimovich brothers. Yegor (18) & Ivan (20). I was really surprised Yegor went undrafted last year. Theyre both still draft eligible. Ivan wasn't in the lineup this game and Yegor apparently barely played, so I didn't miss much.
I wouldve liked to see the Spartak / Severstal game. Spartak has German Tochilkin, an overager that's still draft eligible. He's spent the past 2 seasons primarily playing pro as a teenager in the VHL and KHL. A handful of games in the MHL as well. Looks like he was in the same boat as teammate Nikita Susyev (STL).. neither played much today. Severstal has a handful of players to keep tabs on. Vasili Shumilov (20) and Ilya Ivantsov (20) might not be the standout ones at the moment but they're the only 2 that are still draft eligible. Danil Aimurzin (21) is one of a few that aged out. He's spent most of the last 3 years playing in the VHL and KHL. His game has translated well from the junior league to against adults. The first 2 games this year they've used him heavily as a top 6 center.
Not to go off on too much of a tangent but one of the reasons it kinda irked me some of the picks we've made the past couple years. Here you have guys that are producing in one the best leagues in the world against grown men. You're removing a huge question mark from the equation, will their game translate to the pros? They already answered that. Aimurzin joins some other promising young KHLers to age out last year. Alex Suvorov, Maxim Fedotov, Vasili Atanasov, who I mentioned in the post above. Other teams targeted these sorts of players last year, guess these guys just slipped through the cracks.