Ivan Ryabkin 2025 NHL Draft Profile

Ryabkin is a heavy left-shot centre, standing at six feet tall and over 200 pounds already despite just turning 18. Hailing from Russia, Ryabkin spent most of his junior hockey career playing in his home country, but this past season made the jump to North America and the USHL after being a healthy scratch in Russia.

As an April 2007 birthday, Ryabkin is one of the younger players available in the first round and spent almost his entire D+0 year as a 17-year-old.

Ryabkin’s on-ice production

Looking at Ryabkin’s D-2 and D-1 production, you can tell right away why he was originally thought of as Russia’s next great prospect on the same level as Matvei Michkov and Ivan Demidov. Ryabkin dominated Russia’s junior ranks, putting up point-per-game totals in the U16, U17, and U18 leagues as a 15-year-old in 2022–23.

He followed up his dominant D-2 season with an even more impressive D-1 year. He tied for his team lead in points in the MHL with 58 in just 44 games, despite being 16 years old and one of the youngest players in the league. His 58 points that year were the highest in MHL history by a U17 player, beating Matvei Michkov’s record and finishing ahead of past players like Nikita Kucherov and Kirill Kaprizov. Needless to say, there was a ton of hype around Ryabkin after his historic D-1 season.

This is where things start to go downhill, though. Ryabkin has had an incredibly underwhelming draft year. He managed just 12 points in 15 MHL games, a drastic fall off from his production last year. This led to him being a healthy scratch before he eventually crossed the pond to join the USHL midseason. Here, he put up a decent but underwhelming 30 points in 27 games. To his credit, he had a strong playoff run with 16 points in 14 games to finish second in USHL playoff scoring.

Ryabkin’s strengths

Playmaking

Ryabkin is great at slowing the game down to his pace, and setting up chances for his teammates from there. He has a patience to his game that lets him wait out defenders while he lets the play develop before dishing it out to a teammate. He simply sees the ice at a very high level compared to many of his peers, and possesses impressive hockey IQ and vision, which makes him a threat in the offensive zone whenever he has the puck on his stick.

Puck-skills

Ryabkin possesses high-end puck skills. He has exceptional hands and uses his borderline elite stickhandling to evade and deceive defenders, shaking them with ease at times and generating time and space to make a play. He’s able to use these puck skills to generate chances for both himself and his teammates. He’s a creative player with the puck as well, and offers a rare combination of puck skills and decent size that many NHL teams covet.

Ryabkin’s areas of improvement

Compete level

Ryabkin’s compete level has been a major red flag this past year. He’s known to take shifts off or just float for large chunks of the game at a time. There are very real concerns about his willingness to engage and apply himself on a consistent basis. He can tend to lose interest when the puck isn’t on his stick. In Russia and even the USHL, he can get away with a lack of effort, but that won’t fly in the NHL. There have been plenty of rumours of Ryabkin not exactly being the easiest player to coach, which is another very real concern with his compete level.

Discipline

Ryabkin is also known to have a temper, and can get easily frustrated and take mindless penalties. Again, something that simply won’t fly at the NHL level. It goes hand in hand with his compete level, as he can get lazy at times and instead of making a smart defensive play, he’ll take a bad penalty out of frustration or laziness. In only his second game in the USHL, he was kicked out for slew-footing his opponent.

Decision making

Another red flag with Ryabkin’s game is his decision making. Despite possessing some high-end skills with the puck, he can sometimes make rushed plays that lead to turnovers. His decision-making is less than optimal at times, and instead of making a simple, smart play, he’ll overdo it and end up giving the puck away. He really needs to work on taking his time making plays consistently, instead of just doing it in flashes.

Ryabkin’s comparables

A good comparison for Ryabkin would be Evgeny Kuznetsov. Both players are highly skilled offensive centres who can generate lots of offence, but deal with issues surrounding consistency and overall effort. At his peak, Kuznetsov was a good but not great number one centre for the Capitals, finishing as a point-per-game player just once.

For Ryabkin, Kuznetsov would be the best-case scenario outcome. Kuznetsov was able to get over some of the red flags surrounding his game thanks to his high end puck skills and playing in the right situation, but it’s still up in the air if Ryabkin will be able to do the same.

Fit with the Flames

The Flames desperately need young, offensive centre’s in the organization. Ryabkin is exactly that. In my opinion, he would be a great fit with the Flames, a team that has shown no concerns with taking Russian-born players in previous years. Ryabkin would be too much of a risk to take at 18th overall, but if he slips to the Flames’ second pick in the first round, he’d be a slam-dunk pick. He’s the exact type of high-skill, boom-or-bust-type player a team devoid of elite talent should be betting on late in the first round.

Summary

Ryabkin is arguably the most divisive prospect in the 2025 draft, with some scouts having him as a surefire top 25 pick and some having him going all the way in the second round. The skill is undeniable, but concerns over his effort level, coachability, and discipline make him a big-time gamble. Ryabkin’s realm of possible outcomes could realistically stretch from being a legitimate top-six centre in the NHL to going back to Russia next year and never coming back to North America. That’s how much of a gamble he is, but sometimes you have to gamble on high-end talent.

Risk: 5/5

Reward: 4/5

Projection: Second-line offensive centre

Check out all of The Win Column’s individual player profiles of selected 2025 NHL Draft prospects:

Matthew Schaefer | Michael Misa | James Hagens | Porter Martone | Anton Frondell | Victor Eklund | Roger McQueen | Caleb Desnoyers | Jackson Smith | Jake O’Brien | Carter Bear | Radim Mrtka | Lynden Lakovic | Brady Martin | Justin Carbonneau | Malcolm Spence | Cameron Reid | Logan Hensler | Cameron Schmidt | Ben Kindel | Kashawn Aitcheson | Cullen Potter | Braeden Cootes