In his second season in North America, Alexander Alexeyev has proven to be a solid two-way defenseman. The St. Petersburg, Russia native had a productive season while playing, but did face plenty of adversity, missing time due to injury and to travel back to Russia because his mother passed away.

He came in at 6’3.75″ and 195.5 pounds at the scouting combine.

Projected to go 22nd overall among North American skaters.

It’s been reported that the Serebryanye team that Alexeyev came up through has just merged with another one of SKA-St. Petersburg’s teams SKA-Varyagi. Even though he came up through the SKA system, he was drafted 3rd overall in the 1st round of the 2016 KHL draft by Mettalurg Novokuznetsk and Salavat Yulaev Ufa currently holds his KHL rights. In his KHL draft season, he only had 2 points in 20 MHL Russian junior league games but had solid international performances that definitely helped raise him up scouts lists.

His stats don’t jump out at you, but he did have the third highest points per game among WHL draft eligible defensemen behind Ty Smith and Calen Addison.

Alexeyev played in the CHL’s Canada-Russia series and had 6 penalty minutes in the 2 games he played. Unsurprisingly, he was among the final cuts for Russia’s World Juniors team. Russia doesn’t really like to play 17 and 18 year olds in big roles or at all.

Though he wasn’t over a point per game in his shortened season, he’s still poised to break out next season. His skating and size among other traits will be coveted by teams late in the first round, early second round as they look for a defenseman. When you watch him dangle around forwards in the offensive zone, you realize his offensive skill isn’t to be underestimated. When you step back and look at his whole skill set, he could end up being an effective shutdown defenseman.

He’s a defenseman with size, of course, he’d be a match for Detroit. Stepping into Tyler Wright’s shoes for a minute, I think Alexeyev would have to be in the group considered for their late first rounder and early second rounders, but he may not be the guy they take. He’s right there in a group with Nils Lundkvist, Jared McIsaac, Ryan Merkley, K’Andre Miller, Mattias Samuelsson, and Rasmus Sandin to be drafted in the late first, early second. Whoever drafts him will have a safer, but still fun to keep track of prospect defenseman.

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