Sheng Peng
The San Jose Sharks still haven’t hired a scout in Russia…and they seem perfectly happy with that.
It didn’t stop them, for example, from plucking Igor Chernyshov from the top of the second round last year.
Chernyshov missed the first half of the season with shoulder surgery, but dominated the OHL when he got healthy, dropping 55 points in just 23 games for the Saginaw Spirit.
They also grabbed goaltender Yaroslav Korostelyov in the seventh round. The 19-year-old flourished in the MHL, going 20-3-0 with a .936 Save %.
So how is San Jose Sharks’ amateur scouting getting by in Russia, where travel access in is still limited because of Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine?
Two years ago, GM Mike Grier fired Russia-based Igor Eronko, saying, “He wasn’t seeing games and wasn’t doing what we were asking.”
Earlier this month, at the Combine in Buffalo, San Jose Sharks director of amateur scouting Chris Morehouse laid out how the franchise is still finding players in Russia, even without a Russia-based scout.
It starts with Ukraine-based Nikolai Ladygin, who was the Sharks’ Russia-area scout well before the war.
“Nikolai does all the heavy lifting in terms of video and watching. Nik points us in the direction of who to watch,” Morehouse said. “We have [scout Ales Vladyka], who does all the video work for us in Europe and throughout North America.”
Director of European scouting Shin Larsson also watches, as does Morehouse and director of player personnel Scott Fitzgerald and the Sharks’ other amateur scouts.
“I have our other scouts watch them on video,” Morehouse said.
If there is a Russian prospect that the Sharks really want to see or meet in person in Russia, Slovakia-based scout Martin Uhnak is able to go in.
“The Russian thing is a collective effort,” Morehouse said.
In the month of the Draft, there are also opportunities to meet the Russian prospects in person. Agent Dan Milstein is currently holding a Draft Showcase in Florida, in its second year, made up mostly of his Russian clients.
Morehouse is there, as are other members of the Sharks organization: “[Evgeni Nabokov], he’s going to be there to watch guys and come down and talk to Russian kids with me. We kind of do it by committee. Nik is an incredible person, and I love working with him.”
That’s where they met Chernyshov last year. Story is, Chernyshov got sunburn on a boat in Florida, and couldn’t skate for the 32 NHL teams who came to see him.
Morehouse confirmed this: “He was badly burned. That’s the emotional part of the business, right? Everybody’s there to watch him, see him, and he can’t skate. I told the agent, ‘Thanks for taking him out on the boat to get him burned.’”
Did that contribute to Chernyshov’s drop in the Draft?
“We were lucky, but luck comes by process of work,” Morehouse said.
It’s not a perfect system, but as evidenced by Chernyshov and Korostelyov, it works.
“We’re not missing players,” Morehouse said. “We’ve found a way to make it work.”