The Florida Panthers are one win away from their second straight Stanley Cup championship. Game Two of the 2025 Calder Cup championship is on Sunday in Charlotte. Coming off a double-overtime win in Game One, the Abbotsford Canucks (Vancouver Canucks affiliate) lead the Charlotte Checkers (Florida Panthers’ affiliate), one win to zero. Meanwhile, here are some Flyers Quick Hits and Musings for June 15, 2025. Today’s focus: Russian talent and Flyers recruitment.
Flyers Russian Connection
It remains to be seen whether Russian free agent Maxim Shabanov chooses the Flyers or another NHL destination. Overseas reports that Shabanov to Philly was a lock proved to be premature. The 24-year-old winger has multiple offers from a variety of NHL clubs. The Flyers have never denied interest in the player. However, Shabanov has not made a final decision thus far. Even when he picks a team, there are various tie-ups and red tape that often delay the timetable for such deals to be finalized and announced publicly.
Regardless of where Shabanov ends up, the Flyers have quietly built a strong avenue to recruiting Russian talent. On the amateur scouting side, Canadian-born Ken Hoodikoff gives the Flyers a boots-on-the-ground advantage in the former Soviet Union that some other NHL organizations have lacked in recent years. Hoodikoff is well-respected on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean and he’s able to converse fluently in either Russian or English. “Hoody” was instrumental in the process of scouting Matvei Michkov, getting the prodigy interested in the Flyers and helping toward securing his services one year after the 2023 Draft.
Last year, the Flyers hired longtime KHL head coach and Russian national team coach Oleg Znarok (Olegs Znaroks) as a European scouting and player development consultant. The hiring flew under the radar locally and in much of the NHL but was a valuable addition. Znarok is very well connected within the Russian hockey bureaucracy and with coaches and players alike. Flyers Fans may recall, one year ago, a photo of Michkov, Flyers teammate Ivan Fedotov and a 60-year-old man in Aspen, Colorado, made the rounds on social media. Originally posted on Michkov’s Instagram account, Znarok is he man in the middle of the photo.
Michkov himself has become a recruiting asset for the Flyers among fellow Russian players. Much of the impact so far has been in terms of players overseas following Michkov’s exploits in the NHL. However, as Michkov’s NHL career grows, so will his ability to convince countrymen already in the NHL to want to come to Philadelphia.
Last summer, prior to Michkov’s first NHL season, a Flyers Hockey Operations official confirmed (understandably without going into much detail) that astute NHL organizations must be proactive to gaining a competitive advantage in Russia. No one discusses specifics on how things get done. The fragile political climate, the competitiveness of the NHL, and the fragile transactional nature of dealing with the KHL and Russian Hockey Federation preclude anyone from going into detail.
Nevertheless. it’s fair and accurate to say the Flyers want to build further inroads to Russian talent. There are subtle signs of progress in that area. In the big picture, success will be measured through players’ NHL contributions and team success.
NHL Draft: Russians on Flyers’ radar?
For good reason, most of the Flyers talk around the 2025 Draft focuses on the sixth overall pick of the first round. Secondarily, pundits speculate on which players the Flyers might take with the 22nd (Colorado) and 31st/32nd (Edmonton) selections.
Meanwhile, I wonder how much, if at all, the Flyers will home in on Russian talents in the second round and beyond. The Flyers hold four picks in the second round:36th, 40th, 45th and 48th overall. The Flyers probably won’t hold on to all these picks. They have the flexibility to package some assets in an NHL roster trade, move up in the Draft to take a specific prospect, and/or diversify assets across future Drafts.
The 2025 Draft doesn’t quite have the caliber of Russian talents that the 2023 Draft (Michkov, Daniil But, Dmitry Simashev, Mikhail Gulyayev) or 2024 (Ivan Demidov). However, there are a few late-first or second-round candidates of potential interest.
USHL center Ivan Ryabkin is one of the most divisive prospects in the 2025 Draft pool. He joined the USHL’s Muskegon Lumberjacks after leaving Dynamo Moscow of the KHL. Ryabkin has first-round caliber talent. However, he’s prone to discipline lapses both in terms of turning over pucks in bad places, defensive coverage lapses, and bad penalties. Ryabkin reportedly tested and interviewed poorly at the recent NHL Scouting Combine. This may have hurt his stock enough to knock him out of the first round entirely.
The skill is undeniable. Ryabkin is the sort of prospect who generates some dazzling plays on highlight videos. He’s also the sort of prospect who frustrates some coaches. He can dominate one game, disappear for four (save one or two great shifts) and then reemerge with an excellent performance the next. He’s not a two-way player at this point.
As such, there is bust risk. There’s an impact player ceiling. His conditioning must improve and maturity is needed.
The Flyers, however, have so many assets between the late first round to the middle of the second round that they might be able to take a gamble here. I don’t know where Philly’s scouts specifically stand on Ryabkin. I would think, however, he might be a viable choice with the 31st/32nd pick or especially with one of the second rounders.
Three other Russians to watch in the second-round range: MHL power winger (6-foot-5, 219 pounds) Daniil Prokhorov, MHL winger Alexander Zharovsky (outstanding puckhandler and soft hands), and tall and mobile MHL/KHL defenseman Kurban Limatov (6-foot-4, 190 pounds with an aggressive playing style).
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