2024 Edmonton Oilers prospects
#15 D Nikita Yevseyev
- (Previously: #10 in 2023) 20 years old, 6’1, 187 lbs., drafted #190 overall in 2022
After an unexpected and unwelcome interval to discuss the recent raid of two graduated Edmonton Oilers prospects, we return to our fourteenth annual Cult of Hockey Oilers prospects rankings where we begin the next phase. Our first trio of posts analyzed groups of five or even eight depth prospects; we’ve now made it to the top fifteen, and here the countdown begins on a player-by-player basis.
Not that there’s a much greater reservoir of information on a player this deep in the prospect pool as there is on any one of his predecessors. Less in some ways, given his location.
At the time of his selection in the sixth round of 2022, prospect expert Corey Pronman of The Athletic provided this succinct scouting report of Russian defender Nikita Yevseyev:
- Yevseyev skates and competes well enough and can outlet pucks fine but the offensive upside in his game is a question.
He was a typical late-round flyer by the Oilers, his story not so different in important respects from the quintet we covered last time, all of them either 20 or 21 years old. Yevseyev turned 20 this past May, having played two more years in his native country since his sixth-round selection by the Oilers in 2022.
And very different years they were. One was spent learning the ropes bouncing around three teams in two different professional leagues. The other, almost entirely in the top-level Kontinental Hockey League, playing 48 games in the regular season and an eye-popping 22 in the playoffs. Not bad for a teenager.
Sounds like progress, right? Trouble is, Yevseyev delivered those seasons in reverse order as listed above. He made the jump from junior straight to the KHL at 18, and not only got into all those games, he logged a decent amount of ice time in the process. (Not always the case in a league where junior-eligible players can be added to the team as “extra” skaters, and often find themselves warming the bench.)
As we detailed in this series a year ago, Yevseyev saw the most KHL action of any d-men in his (tiny) age group, with the most games played, the highest ATOI, and more goals and points than the rest of them combined. This unexpected leap in performance in an extremely tough league catapulted him to #10 in our rankings a year ago.
Alas, what followed was largely a step backwards:
Note that he played 17-21 games for each of 3 different teams, then another 21 in the postseason for the last of them.
Yevseyev started 2023-24 in Ak Bars Kazan, playing the first 19 games of the season. But he spent Game #20 sitting on the bench playing 0:00, and just like that his his KHL season was kaput. As per the “Youngsters” section of this review of the team’s performance:
- [ Head coach Zinetula ] Bilyaletdinov has a reputation as a coach who doesn’t particularly like working with young players. This reputation is supported by the numbers: in the 2023-2024 season, Ak Bars used 10 players aged 23 or younger, but only three of them – Katelevsky, Ilya Safonov, and Maxim Bykov – played more than 20 matches. Semyon Terekhov and Nikita Yevseyev (both 19 games), Artemy Knyazev (18 games), and Artur Akhtyamov (17 games) fell just short of this mark.
Yevseyev relocated to that organization’s affiliate in the Supreme Hockey League (VHL), about the equivalent to the AHL. In late December he was transferred for unspecified reasons to Neftyanik Almetievskk in that same league.
He did get a decent amount of ice time in both locales. His 17:52 per game ranked third on Bars, while his 16:52 down the stretch in Neftyanik ranked second on that club. This, I remind, at age 19. In both places he averaged about a point every 3 games.
The story had a happy ending when Neftyanik ultimately won the VHL’s Petrov Cup, the Russian equivalent of the Calder Cup.. Yevseyev delivered 0-7-7 in 21 playoff contests, playing 16:26 per game. That doesn’t sound like a lot for a d-man, however ranked second on a team that used four pairings throughout the postseason, with the regulars all clustered between 14 and 17 minutes.
Noteworthy among his individual stats: his 27 playoff hits led the club at all positions and was more than double any other rearguard. His 35 penalty infraction minutes also led the club and ranked second league-wide in the post-season. Suggesting that his physicality remains central to his game, as advertised.
A championship trophy is a good way to end a season, even if it’s a league lower than hoped. Perhaps a springboard for a bounceback season to the top level.
Expectations for 2024-25: Elite Prospects projects this player to be back with Ak Bars Kazan in the season to come. Now that he’s 20 Yevseyev will be treated like a full-time pro as opposed to the end-of-the-bench treatment that junior-aged players seem to get in that league. It’s hugely important that he (re-)establish himself at the top level, especially in what for him is a contract year. The Oilers technically hold his rights until mid-2026, but a signing window might open up next spring if indeed the player warrants a contract offer.
2024 Cult of Hockey prospect rankings
- Rankings are the weighted average of those submitted by our panel of voters including the Cult of Hockey’s homegrown trio of David Staples, Bruce McCurdy and Kurt Leavins, Edmonton Journal colleague and long-time Oilers scribe Jim Matheson, and friend of the blog and AHL follower Ira Cooper.
Recently at the Cult of Hockey
STAPLES: Oilers need a bounceback season from this guy
McCURDY: Stan Bowman on the Broberg/Holloway fiasco
STAPLES: Hockey world reacts to Oilers loss of Broberg, Holloway
STAPLES: NHL insider plays the blame game for Broberg-Holloway mess
McCURDY: Oilers trade Cody Ceci, acquire Ty Emberson
STAPLES: Oilers acquire forward Vasily Podkolzin from Vancouver
Follow me on X-Twitter @BruceMcCurdy