Red Wings prospect Pavel Gogolev isn’t going to make the team out of training camp, but the 6,’ 168-pound Peterborough Petes forward is learning on the fly as a prospect tournament and main training camp try-out.
The Athletic’s Max Bultman spoke with Gogolev, his coach, Rob Wilson, and his agent, Randy Robitaille, about Gogolev not being drafted and his opportunity to increase his stead among teams that may be able to pick Gogolev in next year’s draft:
Working with Detroit’s development staff, including former NHLers Shawn Horcoff and Dan Cleary, he has a chance to not only get noticed, but to get better.
“They played in the NHL, so I’m trying to take everything that they tell me and try to take every good note from it,” Gogolev said at the prospect tournament. “There’s a lot of good players here — first-round picks from last year, from two years ago. I’m just trying to learn from them a little bit and take the step forward.”
Still, it would be naïve to think the evaluation side wasn’t in play here too.
Gogolev could, in theory, be selected in the draft next season, particularly if some improvement gets him over the hump. He already jumped from 11 points in his first OHL season to 47 last year.
Or, he could impress enough in Traverse City to earn a contract with Detroit. That’s still a wide open question, but Gogolev has at least made an impression on the Red Wings’ development staff.
“(He’s) a kid with a really good skill set,” Horcoff, the team’s director of player development, told The Athletic. “I’ve seen him play some really good games during the year. I just think like any other young kid it’s going to be consistency with him and trying to figure out that you don’t have to make a play every single time you have the puck. But I love his personality. He comes to the rink, he’s a happy kid, he wants to learn. We had him at development camp and he was great.”
