Yegor Chinakhov has signed a new contract with the Columbus Blue Jackets.

KHL production down significantly from last season. Wondering if it was a good idea to go off the board and take him in the 1st round.

This was his rookie year in the KHL, draft year he was an MHL player (probably what you were looking at). I'd say as a KHL rookie his numbers were just fine!

dude is just starting and already people are trolling him. He's clearly NHL talent.

I don't think they're trolling him ... just the fact that he was selected in the 1st round.


I found a spreadsheet that aggregated every reputable pre-draft ranking for 2020.

It included 61 total rankings from different publishers.


Chinakhov's rankings from best to worst were:

#01 - 143rd
#02 - 152nd
#03 - 177th
#04 - 186th
#05 - 212th
#06 - 214th
#07 - 249th
#08 - Not Ranked
#09 - Not Ranked
#10 - Not Ranked
Continued
#59 - Not Ranked
#60 - Not Ranked
#61 - Not Ranked


They really didn't have to pick him in the 1st round.

He definitely would have been available in the 2nd + 3rd rounds.

He probably would have been available in the 4th + 5th rounds.

I seem to recall that Jarmo had inside information that he could have gone in the early second before they selected again.

The thing that the draft rankings overstate - and they do this with a lot of non-North American Russians and other foreign players - is they add this "risk" factor of the player not coming over to their rankings. It's likely taking into consideration that he was passed over in his 18 year-old season and that his production prior to his draft year wasn't anything spectacular.

We also have to consider that these publishers - the EPRinksides, the Buttons, the McKenzie's, Red Line Report, etc. - only have so much information available to them. Bob only takes the words of 10 scouts (which does give a good proxy for what the league as a whole is thinking come draft day) but it misses the bigger picture. Even Pronman and Wheeler with their seemingly infinite wisdom don't get every pick right. Every organization values different aspects of the game differently. Every scout has to pitch their pick.

It was an absolute hail mary of a pick, and I agree he should have been available in the second round OR the Jackets could have traded for another early second, but it appears to be paying off. He had great production in the KHL last year given that league doesn't give that much icetime to 20 year olds AND he's coming over right away. Credit where it's due.

no one knows any of that. Furthermore, most of these "ranking" people don't know ****.
if you googled you also probably saw that there were several people in the NHL who thought very highly of him. Which is what really mattered.
Could he have fallen further, maybe. would he have made it to pick 51..... probably not. That is the real issue of why they picked him where they did.

He went on a goal scoring streak right before the draft that put him on a lot of teams radar. There's a chance he would've been available in the 2nd round, but honestly props to Colubus for making sure they got their guy

(1) It wasn’t just Jarmo. A few GM’s/Scouts stated Yegor had plenty of late-first round interest, as I recall.

(2) Said it before, say it again - There Is No Such Thing As A Bad ELC

Who ratted out their GM's plan to another NHL GM?

We either have a rat or a white lie to justify an off the board pick.

Do you know what they do to rats in the GM mafia?

It rhymes with blocky slick pup wiz bass.