Ivan Demidov - A dynamic superstar

A Demigod amongst men

For the sake of clarity, I’d like to specify that this is ever so slightly hyperbolic in my phrasing at some points. It’s not a direct scouting report like I usually write. Who can blame me, given it’s because of the tremendous excitement this one-of-a-kind player brings to the table.

There’s almost nothing that can happen between now and year's end to lower Demidov from number two, as he is pretty much locked in ahead of the rest with complete conviction. I won’t say he’s locked into the number two spot, because I entered the year with Demidov as the number one player and truly believe that he is the best player in this draft. Risk mitigation is what keeps Celebrini ahead, but risk mitigation is also the thing that kept Shane Wright ahead of Logan Cooley for myself and, honestly, that’s an evaluation that pisses me off every time I think of it. Something in me knew that I liked Cooley and Lambert more than Wright, but I did not have the confidence to follow that thread. You cannot miss on the first overall pick. It’s unacceptable. Fortunately, Celebrini is substantially more enticing than Wright and I have 10x more confidence in him living up to the hype and being a slam-dunk player for your franchise; however, I do not have the same level of confidence that he remains better than Demidov when all is said and done.

The entire allure of hockey is that it is fundamentally soccer with some rule changes to change up how forward progression is achieved, the most obvious example being that it is played on ice. The physics of small area engagements are changed because the way that precision footwork creates success is so dramatically different. The details of controlling our momentum on the ice are the name of the game now. The game of high-level pro hockey is a dance between two five-man units. We evaluate prospects hoping to find the ones that can consistently win their assigned 1v1 and then follow it up with a play that improves the standing of the entire 5 man unit.. which is basically how soccer players are evaluated, except for 10 man units. It’s rare to find prospects where you can clearly see they can beat NHL caliber players with their tools while also having the means to make high-end plays afterwards. Every draft has only a few, Demidov is one of a few for 2024 that meet this mark, a claim that should be unanimously agreed upon given his fluidity with in-motion skill and dynamic angle changes. I’ll go a step further and say that Demidov is the only player in the draft where you can see how he can single handedly disrupt entire defensive structures at the NHL level. The current means and decision making aren’t going to work in the NHL, meaning there is a bit of projection to this claim, but the way he can attack a defenders momentum and use it against them is so drastic that any other defender in close proximity is going to have to make an equally drastic change in their momentum and fully commit to stopping the new path Demidov is rampaging down, only to find themselves in the same position the first defender was in — committed to one direction while Demidov seemingly has access to them all. 

Mohawk-style skating is flashy as all hell and visually appealing, but there’s a reason it isn’t shredding the NHL like people first thought with the likes of Jeremy Bracco and Antonio Stranges. It’s hard to recommend it as the baseline of a player’s movement, especially when it’s overused to a predictable extent as it leaves you susceptible to getting boomed… but Demidov has perfected it. The mohawk’s biggest strength is that it allows for sharp directional changes and quick acceleration. Used smartly, it’s almost more of a tool for puck protection than it is for open-ice maneuverability, as you can basically just shove your ass in any direction in any given time and shield the puck from whoever you want with your body, while allowing a gifted skater to take off quickly. There are many NHL players that take advantage of this in specific moments, but few who rely on it outside of those circumstances. The NHL is a game of milliseconds and inches, and once you enter the stance, there’s a small time period where you have to actually execute the turn before you can start taking off in another direction. Your trajectory is predictable as every player in that league knows your escape options are limited and know the game at such a level that they aren’t predicting if you’re entering the mohawk stance, but when you are going to do so.. and if you don’t have a wealth of tools keep the opposition honest, they’ll predict your timing with near perfect accuracy. Meaning they can time when to exploit the mohawk’s weaknesses with breathtaking ease. If you can’t account for all the variables around you, then you’re either getting smashed by someone who timed you entering the stance, or you can narrowly escape that situation and have to then deal with anyone who rotates in as support who can then poke-check, stick-lift or just ensure you get smashed this time around.  

It seems almost impossible from a physics perspective but what separates him from others is that while they need to enter the stance and lose their current momentum to execute the turn, Demidov retains his momentum.. but only for as long as it serves him. He can stop on a dime at any moment or seemingly continue on his trajectory, making defenders uncomfortable to commit to a hit. But they’re going to have to try something and that means they’re going to have to commit to whatever that something is at some point. A stick challenge, a body contest, an attempt to time his pass and steal it -- whatever it is, they have to do something. That’s where the Demigod comes alive. The near-instantaneous directional change as soon as his prey’s momentum is committed, complemented by some hands as good as anyone in recent drafts, means he just pivots out and explodes in that direction. Which direction will he go? You have no god damn idea because there’s no tell at game-speed. It’s all wrapped in a clean little package. You can’t read the inputs and tell if he wants to stop, change the trajectory of his attack or accelerate because he does not suffer the same, predictable drawbacks of each of these actions that players are reliant on in order to make decisions regarding committing their own momentum. Demidov’s skating without the mohawk is still an act of grace that the game of hockey seldom sees. His edgework is a gift to humanity.   

This does not mean he does not get hit, as we’ve all likely been extremely frustrated by the times he just centers himself towards the opposition in some poor attempt to dangle right through them only to be knocked off the puck; however, my contention is that happens due to decision making and not the nature of his skating. It is not a stretch whatsoever to think that Demidov will one day grow tired of opting into the centerline and make it easy for some gigantic bull with a fraction of his lateral agility to crash into him when he can, quite literally, dance around them so fast that you could make a new version of this gif: Datsyuk teleport gif. I’ll argue he’s the first top-end prospect in the new-age NHL, where skating and skill reign supreme, to find the perfect equilibrium between using all of the Mohawk’s advantages while mitigating the disadvantages, understanding that it’s only useful in particular conditions but willing to enter those conditions as much as humanly possible. I can see a world where this flaw remains a key cog in his game, and things don’t come to fruition the way I want in the NHL; but, if the people handling him and his development know what they’re doing, he should finish as the best player in this draft from an offensive and transition standpoint. The only other tool package that stands out to contest that claim would be Cayden Lindstrom’s, and while I clearly disagree, it’s a very respectable package to prefer. 

The reason why Demigod will remain breathing down Cerebral Celebrini’s neck for first until the day of the draft is because there aren’t opportunities to add players like this to your team. You don’t sign them, you don’t trade for them, they don’t just show up. Macklin is so goddamn good that it’s easy to just go “yeah, this guy does everything at a high level and there’s nowhere we can’t rely on him against the best players in the world”. I’m doing it myself after all. Celebrini should be showered with praise for his ability to set-up solutions to a problem that leave him advantaged against the next problem that comes his way less than a second later; yet, it still comes short of Ivan Demidov. It comes short because Macklin has to set-up those solutions a certain way, or he will fail to overcome the second, third, or fourth variable and fail the solution. Ivan does not need to set-up these solutions, at least in the traditional sense, because he does not need to adhere to the same principles of momentum that Macklin does. He can always escape. He can always shift to protect. Things only fall apart when he misreads the available options of each defender he chooses to attack, like a young cub that has yet to become the apex predator. Whenever he reads this correctly, there is no answer for the opposition. What a five-man unit can achieve when its primary force is not bound to the same rules of commitment and momentum as others is limited only by what a coach and GM can imagine. Instead of misunderstanding the driving cause behind the most recent Stanley Cup champion’s success and focusing on acquiring assets that led to success throughout the history of hockey, let’s instead look towards the sky-high ceiling of the future. The future of the game is to consistently invoke soccer principles and tactics into hockey, as the sport is leaps and bounds ahead from a tactical perspective; but there is only so much one can siphon so long as our movement is limited and constrained to that of a soccer player. There is a direct correlation between the two, and we will only gain access to soccer’s deeper details driving the shared principles between our sports when our movement becomes more similar. 

I won’t make the claim that Ivan Demidov is the player that pushes the limit to the revolutionary extent that hockey scholars are looking for, but if it all works out, he can push whatever team he plays for down a path that may just change the game forever.