Who is Anton Silayev? Meet the 2024 NHL Drafts 6-foot-7 unicorn top prospect
He’s the talk of the 2024 NHL Draft. A 6-foot-7, 17-year-old unicorn defenseman playing 18 minutes a night on one of the best teams in arguably the world’s best professional league outside the NHL.
His name is Anton Silayev and according to one team analyst with an NHL club, he has the “potential to be the top pick this year.”
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“Elite size and skating,” the analyst told The Athletic. “Massive but doesn’t play with a physical edge. Adding that would add a whole new dimension to his game and is probably baked into his potential. Decision-making can improve, still pretty raw.”
Asked in a follow-up question to clarify if he thought Silayev could challenge presumptive No. 1 pick Macklin Celebrini, the analyst half doubled down: “He could,” the source said, “but smart money would be on Celebrini keeping it.”
And while not everyone places Silayev in that conversation at the moment (or at least not yet), that some do — and that multiple team staff surveyed recently by The Athletic all agreed that he, in a matter of weeks, had emerged as one of the draft’s premier prospects, and maybe the defenseman in a class full of them — says a lot.
A season ago, Silayev registered two goals and 10 points in 58 combined regular-season and playoff games at Russia’s junior-level MHL. Today, a little more than a month into a new season, he has already broken the KHL’s under-18 scoring record for a defenseman. Soon, he’ll have broken the under-19 one, too. Even the under-20 isn’t out of reach.
One director of amateur scouting with an NHL club called him “better than Dmitri Simashev (drafted No. 6 by the Arizona Coyotes) last year on projection.”
“Significantly better than Simashev at this time last year,” said a second team analyst.
One European NHL scout said that while he still needs to “see more skill and hockey IQ before putting him in the top 10 discussion,” Silayev “has size and skating but he also puts in the work in every shift, so he’s an easy player to like.”
“He’s dynamite,” said the scouting director. “Skating is easy and he can make a play from the back end. Still has a huge upside, too.”
So, what does that upside look like?
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To dig a little deeper, I watched back all of Silayev’s shifts across his first 19 KHL games (plus preseason) to break down what the tape and the data tell us about the 2024 draft class’ most unique prospect — or rarest gem.
The data
Before I jump into the tape, I think it’s important to contextualize Silayev’s results so far this season. Through 19 games, he has registered two goals and seven points for Torpedo, who sit third in the KHL’s West Conference at 12-6-1.
The previous KHL records for points and games played by an under-18 defenseman were two, which he has sailed past, and 27, which he will. The games played record was set just recently by Devils first-round pick Shakir Mukhamadullin, acquired by the Sharks in the Timo Meier trade. Mukhamadullin registered just a lone assist that season.
The KHL points record for an under-19 defenseman is 10, also set by Mukhamadullin. That season, Mukhamadullin played to 0.26 points per game. This season, Silayev has so far played to 0.37 points per game in his under-18 season.
Beyond the points, he has also done a good job generating shots: his 40 (or 2.1 per game) rank second among the team’s defensemen.
His 17:55 average ice time ranks fourth on the team’s defense, with a career high of 21:28 set on Oct. 9 in a matchup against first-place Lokomotiv.
Throughout, he has played both the left and right side, and has featured prominently on the power play, leading its second unit, both of which are impressive given his size and the latter of which is particularly impressive given his relatively modest production in the MHL last season (a sign of some fast progress).
Though more than one NHL scout and analyst spoken to for this story said that he doesn’t play with a physical edge and/or has some growth to do in that department, Silayev’s 35 hits actually lead the team’s defense (the next-closest being 22). His 31 blocks are also third-most on Torpedo’s backend, while his five takeaways are second-best.
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The tape
Note: Silayev wears No. 21 in all clips.
The first thing that jumps out at you about Silayev, other than his towering length (which, even at 200-plus pounds, still has a ton of room for development without slowing him down), is that skating the scouts and analysts talked about.
His skating isn’t just strong in one sense, or just strong for his size (a cliché that I think gets overused), either. It’s multi-dimensional.
He’s got great edges crossing over:
He falls back onto his heels and transitions onto his toes really comfortably (something that is particularly impressive given his higher centre of gravity):
He walks the line quite well and is comfortable opening up his hips:
He rotates through his hips nicely:
He’s also a surprisingly smooth skater going forward, and frequently and eagerly activates to join the rush, whether as a trailer or by skating pucks out himself.
Watch how he gets on his horse and drives down ice through the middle lane here:
He’s even comfortable driving and protecting the puck out wide to his body with one hand on his stick (particularly hard to do at his size):
He even gets out into foot races and the forecheck quite quickly from a standstill. After helping to exit and trail the play here, watch how he releases and chases here:
Beyond the way his skating helps him play offence through his footwork inside the offensive zone or his fluidity in activations, it also serves him in a variety of ways defensively.
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It helps him retreat to chipped pucks and win races back into his zone (notice how his length helps him in the ensuing board battle as well):
It also helps him gap up and then close out.
Notice how effortlessly he moves from crossing over backward and setting his gap to crossing over into a hit when he knows he has the jump on the puck carrier here:
Same thing here:
He has also shown some nice habits defending man-to-man, regularly making good choices on when to play the body and when to close with stick-on-puck and be disruptive with his length.
Here’s a good example of both. He leads with his stick, breaks up the carry, and then delivers the hit when the play nears the wall:
Same idea here. Lead with the stick. Finish with the body.
I like what I’ve seen out of him on box-outs in front of the net as well. Where many young players would follow the puck and turn back to their goalie when it’s sent on net here, watch how he lets the puck pass him and focuses on the only the actual threat to getting to it — the man:
His fundamentals are there offensively, too.
His head is always up and he does a good job getting shots through:
When there’s space to take, he’ll take it. That’s true with the puck off the point, where he’ll take what’s given instead of rushing a shot on net:
That’s true without the puck in how he finds soft space to get open into:
When a puck does need to get on net quickly, his one-timer is coordinated:
Obviously, Silayev’s size has utility even when skating is taken out of it, as well.
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He’s standing still playing in-zone D here and a good stick still allows him to break up a play:
Maybe most impressively, though, at least considering his length, is how well he handles the puck. He’s actually got some skill in possession.
He regularly splits lanes off the rush, for example. Here’s one:
Here’s a second:
Here’s a third, using some of those off-puck instincts I talked about to jump into a hole for a quick catch-and-shoot:
Final thoughts
When you put all of the pieces together — the “easy” and “elite” skating, the mature details and approach in all three zones with or without the puck, the signs of skill and poise, and the obvious physical tools (which will only strengthen) — it’s not hard to see exactly why NHL clubs are so excited and intrigued about what Silayev has shown, and what he might become.
There are some natural challenges at play in scouting and recruiting him, as has become the new norm for Russian players, including that few teams actually have scouts in the country, his contract status, the geopolitics of it all, and even the practical challenges of speaking to him. Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod and its head coach Igor Larionov did not respond to multiple interview requests from The Athletic for this story, and none of the photo wire services have shots of him (the Russian hockey federation did not return a request for a photo, either).
Still, the question NHL teams will be asking themselves at the top of the draft remains not whether he’ll go high, but just how high?
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I can say without hyperbole that I can count on one hand the number of prospects I’ve scouted in a decade of doing this who are as unique as he is. He’s got a strong early case for top-five consideration — and is in that mix for my upcoming draft ranking — to be sure.
(Illustration: Sean Reilly / The Athletic. Photos: Marco VDM, walik / iStockphoto)
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