On yesterday’s rendition of 32 Thoughts with Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek, Friedman notes that the Montreal Canadiens have joined a growing list of teams looking to poach forward Maxim Tsyplakov out of the Kontinental Hockey Leauge. Unlike a majority of teams around the league, the Canadiens have a unique ability to offer Tsyplakov high-leverage opportunities if he were to join the organization.
Finishing off his seventh season in the KHL this past year, Tsyplakov has spent his entire professional career with Spartak Moskva. A quality depth-scorer throughout much of his tenure, Tsyplakov went through an offensive explosion this season, scoring 31 goals in 65 games, finishing fourth in the league in the category.
Not only did Tsyplakov show that he can be relied upon as a top-level offensive contributor in the KHL this season, but he was an extremely physical player as well. Because of these two attributes, several teams in the NHL have inquired about bringing him over to North America to continue his professional career.
However, there are a few reasons that may indicate Tsyplakov’s most recent season was an outlier, which may cast doubt on his overall talent ceiling at the NHL level. For one, Tsyplakov’s shooting percentage doubled compared to his career averages, jumping to 18% in the 2023-24 season after maintaining a 9% success rate in the previous six years. Furthermore, in the 2023-24 Gagarin Cup playoffs, Tsyplakov only managed two goals and four points in 11 games before his team was eliminated in Round 2 by the eventual Gagarin Cup Champions, the Metallurg Magnitogorsk.
Nevertheless, given that he will be 26 years of age by the start of the 2024-25 NHL season, some teams may view this season as Tsyplakov entering his prime, which is something the Canadiens would most certainly be interested in. Finishing 26th in the league in GF/G this past season, Montreal would present Tsyplakov with an immediate opportunity on the second line at the NHL level.