Analysis: What to expect from Roman Kantserov

Source: Roman Kantserov @ Elite Prospects

Before breaking him down, let us look into the positives. Kantserov was drafted by Kyle Davidson as the 17th-ranked European skater. The Elite Prospects draft guide had the following to say about Kantserov following a 54-point season (27 goals, 27 assists) in 45 games with Stalnye Lisy Magnitogorsk in the MHL.

Kantserov can make plays on first touch, by first identifying pressure and then immediately beating it with a stickhandling move, and he can involve teammates in plays with purposeful movements. Good posture in his rush offence. He can combine crossovers, fakes, and handling moves to carry the puck, and he’s a very quick passer.

This is all high praise, and it is very understandable why Blackhawks fans would be excited for him to don the Indianhead sweater at the United Center. It is a dangerous game to compare current or future NHL players to past players because there are so many intangibles and the human aspect. It is also important to temper expectations so as not to set the less studied, or even the studied, fans up for unnecessary disappointment.

The two players who have been most commonly compared to Kantserov are Kucherov and Panarin, for good reason. Both players have had long, successful NHL careers, and if a 44th overall draft pick could approach the productivity of either, that would be a huge piece added to the Blackhawks’ rebuild. Imagine if Davidson was able to pull an Ivan Demidov-ish level player a full round and a half after Connor Bedard.

Back to player comparisons, the most common standard to level-set is their production in the MHL because they all played relatively similar lengths of time at similar ages. When put side by side, their Russian minor league numbers look like this:

As you can see, Kantserov had an impressive time in the MHL, but not quite up to what the others had produced. Some will cite the KHL production, but Panarin played considerably more and Kucherov considerably less in the Russian top professional league:

As a result, there is no accurate one-to-one-to-one comparison. There are other factors left to take into account as well. KHL ice is bigger than the NHL ice, which allows smaller skill players more room to work. In North America, with the smaller ice and bigger, faster players, his time and space will close in much faster. The level of play in the KHL is also much closer to the AHL than the NHL. If you take into account some of the highest-producing players in the KHL, there is a large number of former NHL/AHL tweeners on the list and zero former high-producing NHLers.

All of these factors make it hard to be certain of what Kantserov can do in the NHL. All things considered, he is likely a second-line or middle-six responsible scorer. Projecting him as a top-line superstar is rushing to judgment, though, and probably irresponsible. The Blackhawks would be lucky to have a reliable player who can chip in some secondary depth and potentially add 40-50 points.

The video below does a great job of breaking down Kantserov’s play. Some points that should not be lost are “There’s also the issue of his skill set overlapping with many other players and prospects in the Hawk system,” and “In some ways, he looks a bit like Oliver Moore and Frank Nazar, Nick Lardis, and others.” I want to emphasize that none of this is necessarily bad, but he is going to need to set himself up in the top third of that group to cement himself in the NHL lineup.