30. New Jersey Devils : Kasperi Kapanen 29. Los Angeles Kings : Brendan Lemieux 28. Tampa Bay Lightning : Julius Honka 27. Chicago Blackhawks : Conner Bleackley 26. Montreal Canadiens : Nick Schmaltz 25. Boston Bruins : Alex Tuch 24. Anaheim Ducks : Jack Dougherty 23. Colorado Avalanche : Travis Sanheim
22. The Pittsburgh Penguins select Right Wing Nikolay Goldobin of the Sarnia Sting in the OHL
6’0, 185lbs, 1995-10-07 : 18 years old
67 – 38g – 56a – 93p
Also known as Nikolai...or if you speak Russian, Nykolay, or if you're tired of people changing their names all the time to fit certain vowelage, Nykolay Gyoldobyn. Sorry about that, it's just after having to change two other Russian players names while writing this because of the alphabet changes, I want this known. One of the oldest 18 year old players in the draft, Goldobin has been on the radar these past two seasons after making the move to Sarnia. After a solid rookie campaign (30g-68p), he exploded this season as most predicted, despite a rather inept team overall. The Sting were a steaming pile of…you know…this past season, but draft eligibles Goldobin and De Angelo shined regardless. He finished 7th overall in scoring and second behind only Michael Dal Colle in draft eligible scoring (Bennett played 10 less games than both of them). As you can deduce, Goldobin is a scoring winger, he’s one of the more dangerous forwards in this draft and despite being Russian one would hope the move to Sarnia and expected to stay another season there will keep the “stain… off him. Excellent scoring instincts and a wicked wrister are his bread and butter, however this season he showed signs of evolving his offensive game beyond just being a triggerman, something that plagued him in his rookie campaign and made him seem like a puck hog. All the offensive gifts are there to be a top-6 scorer in the NHL some day, the skating, the shot, the puck handling, he brings a little bit of it all.
The major concern is of course, the defensive zone. He needs to improve his defensive awareness or risk the moniker of being “one dimensional.… Personally I don’t think this is as big a deal as some are making it out to be, the Sting were garbage and I don’t care if you had Bennett or McCann or Larkin or any of the other players known for their defensive prowess, you’d be a minus player and people would question your defensive ability. Goldobin has yet to play with a single player that understands the word “defense.… It’s easy to pile on him and that -30 sticks out like a sore thumb compared to pretty much every other first round prospect, but let’s not fool ourselves, if he’s playing on the Generals or the Storm etc. like Dal Colle (+8) and Fabbri (+45) are there would be practically no whining about his defensive lapses. I think he does need to improve that side of his, plus he needs to show that he can engage in a physical game without getting frustrated, though getting triple teamed all the time didn’t help much in that regard.
I think what I’m trying to say is that Goldobin has a ton of upside to go along with some risk. The Penguins have been picking defender after defender and have amassed a pretty good looking haul of them, so I think we’ll see them take a forward with this pick.
Comparison : Jordan Eberle
Thanks for reading.