Avalanche Sign Ilya Nabokov To Entry-Level Contract

5:19 p.m.: Nabokov won’t be heading to North America quite yet. Rawal reported that although the Avalanche have signed Nabokov to his entry-level contract, he’ll spend the 2025-26 season on loan with KHL Metallurg.

3:02 p.m.: As hinted at yesterday by Evan Rawal of the Denver Gazette, the Colorado Avalanche have followed through in signing their highest-rated goaltending prospect. Colorado announced they’ve signed netminder Ilya Nabokov to a two-year entry-level contract through the 2026-27 season.

The Avalanche selected Nabokov 38th overall in the 2024 NHL Draft, making him the first netminder off the board. He went to an organization that desperately needed him.

Colorado corrected many of their goaltending woes this year by swapping out Alexandar Georgiev and Justus Annunen for Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood. Especially in the Georgiev for Blackwood swap, the Avalanche traded a goaltender with a .874 SV% and 3.38 GAA in 18 games for a netminder that finished the season with a .913 SV% and 2.33 GAA in 37 games in Colorado.

Still, Blackwood’s performance hasn’t diminished the team’s excitement about Nabokov. The Kasli, Russia native compiled a 23-13-3 record in 43 games, boasting a .930 SV% and 2.15 GAA, throughout his draft year with the KHL’s Metallurg Magnitogorsk. That performance in the world’s arguably third-best professional league could have garnered first-round interest in Nabokov.

If the regular season didn’t show his promise, the 2023-24 Gagarin Cup playoffs did. Nabokov backstopped Metallurg to their third Gagarin Cup championship, managing a 16-6-0 record throughout the postseason with a .924 SV%, including four shutouts.

Considering the early-season goaltending struggles, there were some rumblings that the Avalanche could seek to pull Nabokov from the KHL sooner rather than later. Still, the team opted to leave him overseas for the 2024-25 KHL season, and he had another impressive year.

Continuing with Metallurg, Nabokov finished with a 23-17-6 record in 49 contests with a .923 SV% and 2.22 GAA, with three shutouts. Assuming the Avalanche stick with the Blackwood/Wedgewood tandem for the 2025-26 season, Nabokov will likely start with their AHL affiliate, the Colorado Eagles, while being a recall candidate should one of the former succumb to an injury.