Anton Silayev

November 2023 – Silayev lit up KHL scoresheets for the first month of the season and garnered a fair bit of attention, but we remained skeptical. It wasn’t until his production dried up that we started logging viewings sparking enthusiasm. While he remains very raw, especially for a defenseman playing in the KHL as a draft-eligible, his tools are rather unique and the ceiling is high. Silayev covers a ton of ice, needing only three or four strides to cross the neutral zone. While he’s a bit wonky on his skates and rarely looks graceful, he uses his skating very effectively on both sides of the puck. Defensively, Silayev relies on his extraordinarily long reach and powerful strides to close gaps quickly and very aggressively. Early in the season, he regularly over-committed, leading to odd-man rushes against, and while he can still be aggressive to a fault, this element of his game has improved significantly in our viewings. With the puck on his stick, Silayev flashes above-average passing mechanics and vision, which allows him to be a positive impact in the breakout, defaulting to stretch passes and give-and-go’s. That said, his decision-making both with and without the puck and his composure remain real works in progress, which ended up being the deciding factor in our debate between him and Levshunov at 10. Sebastian High (November Rankings: 11th Overall)