Montreal Canadiens prospect Ivan Demidov continues to score at an impressive pace in the KHL.
The 19-year-old forward registered yet another multipoint effort on Saturday, including an assist on Alexandre Nikishin’s game-winning overtime goal versus Dynamo.
The play included a very nice rush from Demidov, who capitalized on all the open space available at 3v3 to find Nikishin with a great pass. Despite the fact that many have criticized Demidov’s skating, I’d argue he’s far from slow. The big difference between Demidov and most prospects is that he can execute plays at top speed, owing to his unorthodox, yet efficient skating style.
More than anything, we probably have to update how we analyze modern skating styles, but that’s a discussion for another day.
Demidov also had an assist on an earlier goal from Nikishin, which took place while SKA was on the powerplay.
I’m not sure if he intended to find Mikhail Grigorenko with his pass, as it looked like he was simply trying to put the puck in a high-traffic area, but as we all know, you need to be lucky to be good, and you need to be good to be lucky.
With the two-point effort, Demidov now has 19 goals and 23 assists, which means he is tied for the most productive season in KHL history for an under-20 player. Of course, he’s going to play many more games this year, connoting it will be very difficult for him to emerge from the 2024-25 season without the U-20 record.
Seeing as he receives less ice time than most U-20 players who established historic scoring rates, we decided to level the playing field by evaluating their scoring pace per 60 minutes of ice time, rather than their scoring pace per game.
The results were the epitome of encouraging, as Demidov is far and away the most productive U-20 player in KHL history, with a scoring pace that’s hovering around 4 points per 60.