Introduction
With no first-round pick for the first time since 2008, the Montreal Canadiens had to do some work to get players they had high on their list at the 2025 NHL Draft. Their first two selections were made after trading a couple of picks to move up, with the first transaction coming early on the draft’s second day to move up to 34th. Montreal took Alexander Zharovsky with the acquired pick, making it two years in a row choosing a Russian forward to start off the draft class.
The success of Ivan Demidov in his brief time in Montreal at the end of the season likely gave Kent Hughes and the management team the confidence to go that route once more. While obviously not at the same calibre of last year’s fifth-overall selection, you could feel the genuine excitement from the Habs’ scouting team of Nick Bobrov and Martin Lapointe when discussing Zharovsky as they broke down the draft class.
He played the full regular season of his draft year in the MHL, Russia’s equivalent to the Canadian Hockey League. He scored 24 goals and contributed 26 assists to finish first on his team, Tolpar Ufa, and 11th in league scoring, with the 10 players above him all being at least a year older.
It was an impressive performance, but with a post-season qualification that lasted just two games and saw him add one assist, not one that would automatically place him on an NHL team’s radar. If the extent of his draft-year showing had been the point total he earned by playing an offence-only brand of hockey, he probably would have been a mid-round pick with little fanfare.
What propelled him to a position just two spots outside the first round was his stint with Ufa’s KHL team at the end of the Junior season. His first ever KHL match was an elimination game in the Gagarin Cup semifinals as Salavat Yulaev was down 3-2 in a series with Spartak Moscow. He played four minutes in Game 6 and then seven in Game 7 as Ufa came back to win. Moving on to the semifinal to play eventual champion Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, he played all five games of the series, peaking at 10 minutes in Game 3, ice time that teenagers rarely get even during the regular season at the KHL level.
After playing a high-risk game at the MHL level, the situation demanded more restraint from him in the KHL playoffs, and he showed that he had the hockey sense to adapt to the new situation. There were still plays that were too aggressive and led to goals against, but his positioning on defence was generally sound and he thought out his offensive passes more to limit the counter-attacks he was responsible for.
From a slow start in the MHL that saw two five-game point droughts in opening two months to getting trusted with shifts at the final-four stage of the KHL playoffs, it was a season of rapid progress for Zharovsky. That was the overarching theme of Montreal’s 2025 draft class, started off by a player Bobrov said the staff was considering with one of the picks they originally held for the opening round.
Voting
Zharovsky received placements at nearly every position from nine to 18, with another one at 23. That gives him one of the largest ranges in the countdown as there’s still no clear outlook for what he is as a player.
If uncertainty were a chart, it would be this one of his community votes. He was ranked as high as sixth and as low as 44th. There are two separate main camps of members, one that feels he should be around this 14th place in the list and another believing he’s better slotted around 20th.
History of #14
| Year | #14 |
|---|---|
| 2025 | Alexander Zharovsky |
| 2024 | Arber Xhekaj |
| 2023 | Jordan Harris |
| 2022 | Owen Beck |
| 2021 | Luke Tuch |
| 2020 | Josh Brook |
| 2019 | Jesse Ylönen |
| 2018 | Will Bitten |
| 2017 | Ryan Poehling |
| 2016 | Will Bitten |
| 2015 | Christian Thomas |
| 2014 | Martin Réway |
| 2013 | Michael McCarron |
| 2012 | Aaron Palushaj |
| 2011 | Brendan Gallagher |
| 2010 | Ben Maxwell |
Strengths
Puck-handling is Zharovsky’s main talent. It’s an elite skill that few of his peers can match, and it serves as the base of his game. He wins one-on-one battles with defenders at a high rate, and generates a lot of offence by dancing around opponents. With that ability, he scored about a goal per game at each league he played in over the past few years, and even though he found more of a challenge in the MHL he still managed to score 24 goals to lead his team.
He’s become an excellent transition player carrying the puck up the ice by himself from the defensive zone. Defenders, especially at the levels he’s played so far, can’t follow his motions and end up chasing if they try. He uses his stick well in defensive duties to win the puck off the boards in his own zone, a strategy he developed throughout the season and helped him to have a relatively smooth introduction to KHL post-season play.
He may have grown up as one of the top goal-scorers on each team he played for, but he was more of a setup man in his draft year, making passes to teammates after getting the zone entry. It’s a fairly typical trait of players who lead transitions as the defensive focus shifts to them and it’s the other players who are open for the shots. However, he says that he’s a playmaker first despite the prodding of those around him to shoot more, preferring to set others up instead.
Weaknesses
He could be a bit too confident in his puck-handling abilities as he will attempt plays even with a minuscule chance of success. It’s eye-popping when it works but brow-furrowing when it doesn’t. He’s been so much better than everyone else at carrying the puck and making plays in traffic that he hasn’t had to adopt new strategies, and a big portion of his development will come in finding the balance between creativity and recklessness. There was already a bit of a shift in his KHL games, so it seems he understands that he can’t just make the high-risk play every time.
He doesn’t move on the ice as quickly as he can pull the puck around a defender, and that will limit the effectiveness of his dangles against more agile defenceman who just keep their body in his path to the net. They’re not going to lunge at the puck on his stick and miss to open up a lane to attack through. It’s far from an Alexander Gordin stride that he possesses, but it does rank as below average. His edgework is much better, and that can still help him shake coverage even versus quicker players.
His 6’1″ frame is a good base to build on, but he currently weighs in at 163 pounds, about the same as Lane Hutson who stands 5’9″. Most new prospects need to work on building up their size, but that is vital in his case if he wants to remain an effective player along the boards.
Projection
With the Russian hockey season just about to begin, Zharovsky is currently with the KHL team for a pre-season tournament in Magnitogorsk, suggesting that he is being given the chance to turn last season’s encouraging playoff performance into a full-time position with Salavat Yulaev. A return to the MHL is far from a disaster for his development, but given that the most important thing for him is learning better strategies for the pro game, playing in the KHL would be best for him.
He will need time to develop his defensive game beyond just digging out a puck and racing out of the zone with it, and another season at the Junior level would likely just further reinforce that behaviour. He played centre in an earlier pre-season event this summer, and playing that position would really throw him into the deep end to figure out proper positioning and how to support his teammates to be part of the breakout rather than the entirety of it.
The talent exists for him to be an NHL player should he refine his strategies and strike the right balance between the high-risk play that defines his game and removing the errors that help the other team instead. If he does develop into a centre, that would give Montreal two potential options to fill a skilled role down the middle along with Michael Hage, but there would still be a spot for him as a playmaking winger.
Zharovsky was a sensible gamble for the Canadiens to take with a lack of top-end talent in an otherwise deep prospect pool but the top spots filled at the NHL level for the foreseeable future. It’s not a catastrophe if he doesn’t evolve beyond the error-prone player he is now and never makes the NHL; Noah Dobson is their jewel from the 2025 draft, and Montreal is still on a trajectory to be a Stanley Cup contender. The KHL stint suggests that he’s not going to be limited to the player he was in the MHL last year, and given the steep rise in his development at 18, it’s too early to put a ceiling on what he could become.
Click the play button below to listen to our latest podcast episode, where Patrik Bexell and David St-Louis from Elite Prospects discuss Alexander Zharovsky.
