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Russian forward Alexander Zharovsky offers an abundance of skill in the 2025 NHL Draft
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Photo credit: Eric Bolte-USA TODAY Sports
Ryan Pike
Jun 6, 2025, 14:00 EDTUpdated: Jun 5, 2025, 18:45 EDT
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Over the past several years, the Calgary Flames have stocked up on a lot of players from Russia. If you take a look at the club’s reserve list, you’ll find promising Russian goaltenders like Arsenii Sergeev, promising Russian defenders like Yan Kuznetsov, and promising Russian forwards like Matvei Gridin and Aydar Suniev.
As the Flames try to keep stocking up on talent from around the hockey world, Russian winger Alexander Zharovsky offers a ton of offensive skill and could potentially be an option in the second (or third) round of the 2025 NHL Draft.

Scouting report

Zharovsky was born in February 2007 in Zlin, Russia. He’s a left shot forward that plays the right wing (which is often the case with Russian lefties) listed at 6’1″ and 163 pounds.
Zharovsky came up through the Vityaz Podolsk system, but moved over to Salavat Yulaev Ufa’s system this past season. He played a lot of hockey in 2024-25, suiting up primarily for Salavat Yulaev’s junior team, Tolpar Ufa, in the under-20 MHL circuit. He impressed enough to win the MHL’s Rookie of the Year award.
But he also played for Salavat Yulaev’s club in the Russian under-18 league in their playoffs, and bumped up to play seven games in the KHL playoffs.
Zharovsky is a fascinating player. A snippet of Kareem Ramadan’s rundown of his game, written as part of Dobber Prospects’ mid-season rankings back in March, captures the duality of Zharovsky’s game:
Zharovsky is a highly skilled forward who combines excellent puck-handling ability with flashy, creative playmaking and above-average vision… The drawback in Zharovsky’s game is that he can over-rely on his skill, leading to unnecessary turnovers when simpler, more efficient plays are available… However, when he’s at his best, Zharovsky flashes the kind of dynamic, high-end skill that is sorely lacking in this range of the 2025 class.
Over at Daily Faceoff, our pal Steven Ellis provided a succinct summary of Zharovsky’s game and season:
Zharovsky has been another big riser this year, and for good reason. He put up excellent numbers in the MHL while being so dangerous on the rush. He definitely needs to add more muscle, but if he can even add 15 pounds, he’d be significantly tougher to steal the puck off of. He’s crafty, smart and dangerous in open space – he’s easily one of the top players to watch in Russia.
In the parlance of hockey scouts, Zharovsky sounds like someone with oodles of tools, but the toolbox is still coming together. But considering the quality of his tools – the high skill level and offensive potential – he’s potentially someone that hockey people will have tons of time for. After all, if you can help him build that toolbox, his potential could pay off immensely.

The numbers

Zharovsky played 45 games with Tolpar Ufa in the MHL. He scored 24 goals and registered 50 points. He finished 11th in the entire league in points and was tied for 14th in goals.
Among players in his age group – players eligible for the NHL Draft for the first time – he led his cohort in goals and points within his league.

Availability and fit

Let’s lay out two things here: Zharovsky’s general placement within the public scouting realm… and why we think he might be gone earlier than that. On the various public rankings, Zharovsky often shows up somewhere in the 30s or 40s – in the first half of the second round, essentially. Smaht Scouting has him at 21st on their final rankings, but more or less everyone else has him a bit later.
But here’s the thing: Zharovsky has oodles of offensive talent. If you’re a team that doesn’t have a very deep prospect pool or only has a handful of draft choices, the warts in his game could skew you towards more “high floor” players – prospects with less boom-or-bust potential. But if you’re a team that has lots of picks or has prospect depth, maybe you feel emboldened to grab him earlier because it could pay off big-time. (The Flames are among the teams that we feel could be a potential fit on this basis.)
If you accept the premise that the Flames need to hit home runs in the draft to find great players to help propel their retool process forward, Zharovsky could be the type of player they consider taking as a home-run-swing type of pick. He probably won’t still be available when they pick in the second round. It would be a bold, risky move for them to grab him late in the first round, but it could be a move that eventually pays off.

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