2024 T25U25: Nikita Grebenkin is #6

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Remember when Leafs fans were spoiled by a run of Leo Komarov, Carl Gunnarsson, Pierre Engvall, Connor Brown, and Andreas Johnsson? Those were good times. But in the last several years, none of the late round picks that we fans latched onto as the next hidden gems have turned out aside from Pontus Holmberg.

So you know, it's fun having a late round guy who may be on the cusp of being the next one up to turn into something.

Nikita Grebenkin	Vitals
Age as of July 1	21.4
Position	RW
Height	6'2"
Weight (lbs)	183
Shoots	L
Draft Year	2022
Draft Number	135

The Player

After being drafted in the fifth round in 2022 as a D+1 re-entry, no one knew anything about Grebenkin and he was not ranked in our T25U25. The next year, after his breakout season and Rookie of the Year award in the KHL, he jumped all the way up to 12th. He made a lot of improvements despite not being used in as prominent a role, and halved his ranking again down to 6th.

I'm not going to write much about who he is as a player. I've written tens of thousands of words on him since he was drafted. Proof, in chronological order for those who want to track his evolution through my eyes.

I might have written as much about Grebenkin as any other Toronto prospect that I've followed and covered. In fact, the only other prospects that Toronto has drafted that I immediately fell in love with in the same manner as Greb has been Knies and Cowan.

I am not saying that he is or will be as good as a prospect, but everything you could ask a newly drafted prospect to do in order to show he has serious NHL potential, Greb has done. He took his opportunities and ran with them. He earned more playing time and trust. He made constant improvements in the areas he needed to the most, and it took his game to higher and higher levels over the last two years.

He ends his young KHL career with a lot of hardware: a Rookie of the Year award, an All-Star nod, and a KHL championship. I was also recently on a podcast with Kyle Cushman and you can hear my more detailed thoughts there:

At this point, the only lingering concern I may have about his NHL future is tied to the lower back injury that he played through on that championship run, and that he was still reportedly recovering from during the rookie camp.

Aside from that, the only two prospects in Toronto's system not already in the NHL that I think have a better chance to be there is Minten and Cowan. I think he'll lose the numbers game given his contract status compared to the likes of Holmberg. But I'd pretty easily give him an NHL shot ahead of, say, Alex Steeves or Roni Hirvonen.

The time of Greb is upon us, as early as this coming season.

The Votes

Not surprisingly, I was the highest on Grebenkin. I even ranked him higher Minten, that's how high I am on him! A part of that is just for the fun of it, I admit, but I have come to view the two as more or less equal as future third liners. Minten has the advantage of being a defensive and play-driving minded guy, with Greb offering more utility on rush offense, transitions, and offensive zone skill. Honestly I think you could add the two to a future third line and have a lot of fun watching them.

All the voters had Greb in the top 10, the first prospect on the list so far who can say that. Meanwhile, 8 of the 14 voters had him in the top 5.

Voter	Vote
Cathy	9
Brian	3
Species	7
Adam	4
Hardev	6
dhammm	4
Cameron S	5
Hound Line	4
brysplace	7
Catch-67	5
Sclodiggity	5
shinson93	7
The Bag	6
Zone Entry	7
Weighted Average	5.64
Highest Vote	3
Lowest Vote	9

The only other players left to rank are either: first round picks (Cowan, Minten, Danford), or young players who already have a full NHL season under the bed (Robertson, Knies). Depending on how you look at that, Grebenkin is either the top guy in the group that comes after them, or he's at the bottom of the group that includes the rest of the guys ranked ahead of him.

Personally, I consider him in the latter. When I wrote the first profile on him in his first KHL pre-season, I came damn close to just coming out and saying he'd be an NHLer. But I held back because how crazy it seemed to anoint a just drafted overager who was only taken in the fifth round.

The Opinions

Here's what the rest of the voters had to say about him:

dhammm: I know we should probably take KHL results with a massive grain of salt, but it can't be so bad that Grebyonkin doesn't look remarkable. Depending on how he attacks the AHL, we could have A Real Guy on our hands.

shinson93: Somehow this guy's highlights keep showing up in my feed, so he must be good, right?

Cameron S: Ever since the Leafs drafted him I knew I’d like him. After winning KHL’s rookie of the year and following it up by being a solid player on the Gagarin Cup winning Mettalurg Magnitogursk, I don’t think this was just a fluke, I think he could play in the Leafs’ middle 6 in the future if everything goes according to plan. I wouldn’t be shocked to see him get a game or two this season, one of the players I’m most excited to see develop this year.

Cathy: I'm not absolutely convinced with this player, but I'm willing to agree he's ahead of a lot of the other, better known Marlies players. And that's it. What gets you into the NHL is a long list of things, but one of the most overlooked is how fast you process the game. Players now in the NHL who fans think are so, so bad are miles ahead of some of the highly skilled prospects in processing the speed of the game. And the KHL is not the NHL. Pontus Holmberg is a really good example of a player who knows what to do when, and Conor Timmins is a very good example of one who does not. I don't know where Grebenkin sits on that scale. But I voted him in as a very cautious maybe and I would love to be proved too cautious here. This has been "I don't care about points" episode 162.

The Bag: I had a cluster of young-ish Marlies (or about to be Marlies) in my list, and I had Grebenkin at the top of that pack. He has a history of pro hockey success that is unusual for his age, and that was worth a fair amount to me. As a 20 year old, he was a key forward on a good KHL team (and eventual KHL Champions). He’s still a big question mark, but there are fewer signs suggesting that he can’t have an NHL future than with most of the rest of this list, in my opinion.

Now's the time to let us know your thoughts about GREB!

Here's almost 5 minutes of Nikita Grebenkin goals and notable assists from last season.

For more on Grebenkin, check out my chat with @brigstew86 on Camp Countdown:

📺YouTube: https://t.co/uJmWXH6SjK
🎧Spotify: https://t.co/ZwwMvO4LRa
🍎Apple: https://t.co/sKfGDqGsLp… pic.twitter.com/qgMSqKMMte
— Kyle Cushman (@Kyle_Cush) August 23, 2024

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