Top Prospect Contender: Dmitry Zavgorodniy

The final player in our Top Prospect Contender series is a bit of a unicorn in Calgary Flames circles: a drafted Russian player who’s already signed his entry-level contract. Rimouski Oceanic forward Dmitry Zavgorodniy has only spent three seasons in North America, but he’s turned a lot of heads.

Originally from Omsk, Russia, Zavgorodniy came up through Avangard Omsk’s minor hockey system before deciding to challenge himself by coming over to North America. He was selected by Rimouski in the 2017 CHL Import Draft.

In three seasons with Rimouski, he’s impressed. He’s increased his goals per game and points per game production in each successive season. He was drafted by the Flames in the seventh round of the 2018 NHL Draft after his first North American season and signed his entry-level deal with the club in 2019. He’s the first Russian prospect to sign with the Flames out of the draft in the salary cap era.

Do you like Andrew Mangiapane? Would you like another version of him, only Russian and right-handed? The two players play similar styles; not exactly the same, but they both rely on lower body strength and their hockey sense to protect the puck. Mangiapane’s arguably the better skater, and the thought is maybe Zavgorodniy will have a slightly more challenging pro path because of that.

But aside from that, the kid knows how to score. He’s been one of the most productive QMJHL players in his two seasons since being drafted, and he only missed out on a pair of trips to the World Juniors due to Russia’s tendency to take older prospects (in 2018-19) and a fluke collarbone injury (in 2019-20). Because of that, he remains a somewhat well-kept secret.

Let’s go through some simple criticisms:

If nothing else, the Lafreniere factor confounds projections of how good he is right now. If nothing else, you can cite Glenn Gawdin’s experience in junior and conclude that Zavgorodniy is at least good enough to play with really good players and not drag them down. But it’s unclear how much he can drive play because he hasn’t really had to in recent memory.