A few days ago reports out of Russia surfaced saying that the Flyers have extended an offer to 21 year old Sibir Novosibirst defenseman Nikita Zaitsev. The Flyers were interested in Zaitsev back at the 2010 draft but they, along with the rest of the league, decided to pass on puck moving defenseman. The Flyers now wish to revisit the young Russian following his break out season; scoring 7 goals and 18 points he put up 11 more points than his previous three seasons in the KHL combined.
Zaitsev might sign with the Flyers and will have a good shot at making the team in the first year of his contract. But what Zaitsev, and the Flyers pursuit of him, represents is a mostly untapped reservoir of young talented players.
Most people have heard about the "Russian Factor" around the NHL Draft. The "Russian Factor" is the fear NHL teams have that if they draft a Russian that player may never play in the NHL or that they may not stick with a team if they are not happy with their role. The fear that lucrative contracts and the ability to be a star in the KHL may keep a lot of mid-level Russians from going to or staying in North America. And since no team wants to waste a draft pick on a player who may never be in their organization a lot of Russians are passed over in the draft. In the past three drafts only 21 players from former Soviet states (Russia, Belarus, Latvia, etc.) we're selected after the first round. Of those 21, only 13 were trained in Russia and of those 13 Russian trained players only 6 of them were selected before the 7th round when teams are more likely to gamble with a pick.
The higher a player is taken in the KHL Junior draft the more likely they are to completely fall out of the draft. Zaitsev was taken 4th overall in the inaugural KHL draft in 2009 before going undrafted in 2010 (players are drafted when they are 17 years old in the KHL while they are drafted when they're 18 years old in the NHL). Anton Slepyshev was selected first overall in the 2011 KHL Junior draft and went undrafted at the 2012 NHL even though he was ranked as the 10th best European skater.
What is left over is a wealth of young Russian players whose rights aren't owned by any NHL team. Players who have been playing against adults since they were 17 or 18 years old meaning they have been playing against bigger, faster, stronger, and tougher competition than their North American counter parts. Most mid-level draft picks like Nick Cousins or Tye McGinn will have to spend a few seasons in juniors followed by a season or two in the AHL before they even get a shot at the NHL. Russian players will have spent three years in a professional league by the time most North Americans are entering the AHL. This means that Russians like Zaitsev and Slepyshev can make the jump to the NHL and make an impact at that level at a younger age than mid-level North American draft picks.
The Flyers have one of the shallowest prospect pools in the league. Some of that is due to trading picks and prospects. Some of that is due to being a bad drafting team (since 2001 only 6 non-first round draft picks have played more than 100 games in the NHL). But the Flyers have made up for this by exploring alternative paths like overage CHL players (like Phantoms leading scorer Jason Akeson), NCAA free agents (like Matt Read), and undrafted Russians (like Sergei Bobrovsky and possibly Nikita Zaitsev). The Russian option will produce the more and most NHL ready players and it should be an option the Flyers go to more often.
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