The Nashville Predators have announced they have recalled Egor Afanasyev from the Milwaukee Admirals of the AHL. The Russian winger is playing in his second season with the Admirals and has 13 goals and 26 points in 55 games this season. He had 12 goals and 33 points in 74 games as an AHL rookie last season.
Afanasyev was a second-round pick of the Predators in the 2019 NHL Draft. He was playing for the Muskegon Lumberjacks of the USHL before being selected, and had 27 goals and 62 points in 58 games for them. He headed to Windsor to join the Spirfires in the OHL in 2019-20 where he piled up 31 goals and 67 points in 62 games as an 18 year old.
The 2020-21 season saw him bounce around different Russian leagues during Covid lockdowns which put a halt to the OHL. Afanasyev did score two goals and five points in seven World Junior games in the 2021 tournament.
The 6-foot-4 winger obviously brings a lot of size to the Predators lineup, but he also showed at the OHL, World Juniors and AHL that he has some scoring punch as well. Afanasyev is an interesting 22-year-old forward who is third on the Admirals in goals scored.
The Predators took a sellers approach at the trade deadline and shipped out Mikael Granlund, Tanner Jeannot and Nino Niederreiter. That opens the door for younger wingers to step into the lineup, and Afanasyev looks like he will be getting an audition and a chance to make his NHL debut tonight against the Los Angeles Kings.
To give you an idea of how bad the Preds have been at drafting forwards, only one of them (Arvidsson) scored over 30 goals for them with Fiala doing so when he was traded to the Wild. Two 30 goal forwards in 22 seasons. Good luck with all those upcoming drafts!
let’s give trotz some slack here and see how he drafts first before just thinking they’ll blow it like always hopefully barry makes some changes will take time but gotta be patient with a rebuild
Will Barry be bringing in a new scouting staff? If not, the old saying of the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior is the most likely outcome.
Regardless, this rebuild wastes the prime years of both Josi and Forsberg, not to mention Saros. Why you would do a rebuild now (after the 2019 season was the time to do this) is bewildering to me. Especially with how wide open the West is this season.
Imagine though being given Saros, Josi and Ekholm as your first 3 players and given the task of building a good team around them in a 4 year time span and failing to do so. That’s the David Poile legacy.