From free agents signings such as Nikita Zaitsev and Igor Ozhiganov, to the draft, the Toronto Maple Leafs have put a significant amount of resources into scouting over in Russia.
Since Brendan Shanahan joined the Leafs in 2014, Toronto has selected five players out of Russian leagues in the NHL Entry Draft, signing an additional six as free agents.
- Leo Komarov (Draft pick, brought back in 2014)
- Petri Kontiola (Free agent, signed 2014)
- Nikita Soshnikov (Free agent, signed 2015)
- Martins Dzierkals (Draft pick, 2015)
- Nikita Zaitsev (Free agent, signed 2016)
- Yegor Korshkov (Draft pick, 2016)
- Nikolai Chebykin (Draft pick, 2016)
- Miro Aaltonen (Free agent, 2017)
- Vladislav Kara (Draft pick, 2017)
- Igor Ozhiganov (Free agent, 2018)
- Semyon Kizimov (Draft pick, 2018)
This season, the Leafs owned the rights to eight players playing in the KHL, VHL (Russian equivalent of the AHL), and MHL (Russian equivalent of the CHL).