He's big, he's skilled, he's Russian. What does that mean for Evgeny Svechnikov's draft ranking?
It's been a growing trend in recent years, the "Russian Factor" has made talented young Russian hockey players fall in the draft rankings. We saw a highly-talented Russian player in Ivan Barbashev fall to the second round last year because of this.. Why? Because of what happened with Ilya Kovalchuk.. A player could just up and leave for his home country to play in the KHL, and teams have grown fearsome of such things. It's silly really, if you have a highly-skilled player, you're telling me you would be reluctant to take him because of his nationality?