Zharovsky To Train With Demidov In Montreal

Zharovsky is just recently coming off being named KHL Rookie of The Year at their annual awards ceremony last Thursday. He finished his first full KHL season with 16 goals (tied for the rookie lead) and a rookie leading 42 points in 59 games for Salavat UFA. By winning Rookie of the Year, he follows in Demidov’s footsteps after the Habs forward won the award during the 2024-25 KHL season with SKA St. Petersburg.

Despite his strong rookie season as a whole, Zharovsky struggled a lot towards the end of the season and the playoffs. He finished the postseason with just 2 assists in 10 games after playing over 50+ games for the first time in his professional hockey career. With that being said, he will likely need to train on his conditioning to be able to consistently be the player that he was for the first two thirds of this past season.

Luckily for him, Demidov can help him condition better as he’s shown that he has the experience of having played 101 total games, which obviously takes a lot of conditioning to be able to be effective. Yes, Demidov hit a bit of a wall himself at some point during his NHL rookie season but he also bounced back well and was able to be a very effective player during the 19-game playoff run. The only issue was that the Habs didn’t have the support he needed produce more than 3 goals and 9 points throughout the long run. This summer, the Canadiens should get Demidov the centre that he needs to help him take his game to the next level.

While he should help Zharovsky a lot by training with him for a couple weeks, this should also help Demidov a ton as well. The main reason is that he can gain leadership experience by being the one to really help and challenge his friend, which in turn should allow him to be a more confident player coming into his sophomore season. As a result, don’t be surprised to see Demidov progress a lot next season with all the experience that he gained this year mixed with him possibly learning how to be a leader.

In other news regarding Demidov, he also made it very clear that he hopes to stay in Montreal long-term, indicating that he hopes to get his extension done sometime this summer so that he can just focus on being the best player he can be heading into next season.

Do you think Demidov’s contract negotiations will get done this summer?