The name Alexander Nikishin before last week was more of a myth and legend than a real thing — almost fantasy. But after inking a deal last Friday, the most talked about and hyped up Carolina Hurricanes prospect will turn from fairy dust to flesh and bone.
“100%, [he’s the most asked about prospect],” said Nick Bass, who runs the Canes Prospects account on X. “It hasn’t been close… Nikishin has been No. 1 for the past three years.”
Nikishin, who is only 23 years old, is already coming to the NHL as one of the KHL’s — Russia’s premier hockey league — most accomplished defensemen. He is SKA Saint Petersburg’s all-time leader in scoring by a defenseman with 177 points — 54 goals and 123 assists — in 288 regular-season games. He broke the single-season scoring record by a Russian-born KHL defenseman in 2022-23 and then broke his own record the following season.
Along with his offensive skill, Nishikin’s large frame poses a physical threat on defense that makes him one of the best all-around defensemen.
“He’s 6-foot-4 and one of the best defenseman the KHL has seen over the past 10-15 years,” Bass said.
His 24:29 minutes of ice time per game this season in the KHL would have made him the 13th most-used skater in the NHL if the minutes translated one-for-one. In the KHL, however, minutes are hard to come by, making Nikishin’s KHL-leading time-on-ice that much more impressive.
“In the KHL you have to be really, really good or in a really good system to get a lot of ice time,” Bass said. “The example I can give, [Montreal Canadiens right wing] Ivan Demidov, who is probably the most talented player outside of North America before [Monday], was only getting 10-11 minutes a night and he has all the talent in the world. So for a guy like Nikishin, who is 23, [to play 24:29 minutes a game] it’s unprecedented, especially since he has been the captain for the past two years and this role for the past three. It’s just something you don’t see that often.”
Just like any prospect going from college hockey or junior hockey to a professional league, there will be a transition period. However, Bass expects this to be fairly quick for Nikishin, whose experience and skill sets should see him thrive with the Canes.
“[The transition] is going to look pretty seamless in my view,” Bass said. “… The way that Carolina allows defensemen to have freedom at some points, when you see guys pinching, that is where Nikishin has a lot of success. … There is going to be a transition no matter what from Russia to North America but as soon as that transition gets down, I think he’ll be a really good fit for the Carolina system.”
Whether it be in the playoffs or at the start of next season, the expectation for Nikishin is to be in the lineup as soon as he’s available. He’ll be a key player that can lift an inconsistent power play into one of the most formidable in the league.
“His accuracy is some of the best I’ve seen from running the point … he picks corners with a slapshot, which is insane,” Bass said. “When he becomes a shooting threat, the penalty kill is going to have to send a guy up, which opens up more space for everybody else.”
Nikishin arguably has the talent and experience to get thrusted into the first pairing on arrival but will undoubtedly sit behind defenseman Jaccob Slavin — the Hurricanes top left-handed blue-liner.
“I’ve said for the past year that if Slavin didn’t exist, he would be your top-pairing defenseman, but since Slavin does exist, he’s the perfect second-pair left-handed defenseman who can do basically everything that Slavin can do,” Bass said. “His defense might not be as advanced, but his offensive capabilities are much higher.”
A few Hurricanes players have already talked to Nikishin since he signed, including right wing Andrei Svechnikov, who met the young defenseman last summer at a game that featured Russian NHL players vs KHL players.
“Yeah, I talked with him, and after [he signed] a few times,” Svechnikov said. “… [At the 2024 Russian KHL vs NHL All-star match] that was the first time I met him and we went to a couple dinners after that, talked about the future.”
Svechnikov, like the rest of the Caniacs, is excited for Nikishin to arrive but the timeline is not as clear cut as everyone would hope. Nikishin still has to set up a visa in the United States and Canada before he plays in either country, with the former more imminent than the latter. Nikishin is currently in Turkey waiting for the diplomatic processes to unfold.
“Once [Nikishin’s] embassy appointment gets done, he’ll fly here,” Bass said. “Obviously he won’t play an NHL game in the regular season, but there is still the off chance that [Carolina’s AHL affiliate the Chicago Wolves] play him Saturday if they needed him to.”
For a player of Nikishin’s caliber, it is likely that the transition from Russia to North America will be easier on the ice than off it. Canes netminder Pyotr Kochetkov knows what it’s like, especially coming to place with a 10-hour time difference, different foods and a new language.
“[The transition] it’s always [a] tough, good challenge for you,” Kochetkov said. “It’s good for him that Svechnikov is here, [defenseman Dmitry] Orlov and maybe I. I think he speak more [English] than me when I come because he had a couple import guys at SKA Saint Petersburg, so I think English [is] no problem for him.”
Nikishin brings everything you want from a modern-day NHL defenseman and once he gets to Carolina and puts on Hurricanes sweater for the first time, that is when the show will begin.
