Defenseman Nikita Shcherbakov hails from Tolpar Ufa of the MHL in Russia (at present). I haven’t seen an extensive amount of his play, but what I have seen, I’ve liked. Shcherbakov has split time between the KHL, the VHL and the MHL this season, with the majority of his games (20, to be exact) coming in the VHL, which is the second-tier Russian professional hockey league. Montreal has shown a willingness to draft out of these leagues in recent years, and they’re always ones who go off-board and surprise me, so they felt like the perfect candidate.
Shcherbakov’s strengths lie in the details, and his puck retrieving and edgework have really stood out to me. I want to see whether his ability to manipulate opponents bears out across the rest of the season, but his confidence and puck distribution, as well as his ability to shut down lanes, tells me that the raw talent we’re seeing here is something to watch closely the rest of the way.