According to Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff, Red Wings prospect Dmitri Buchelnkov is on a tear as CSKA Moscow winds down a month’s worth of KHL preseason hockey:
Detroit Red Wings prospect Dmitri Buchelnikov is continuing his strong play for CSKA Moscow in the KHL preseason. The 21-year-old left-winger drew an assist on the second goal in CSKA’s 2-0 shutout of Spartak in the Moscow Mayor’s Cup tournament.
The player Detroit chose with the 52nd overall pick of the 2022 NHL entry draft has points in all three of CSKA Moscow’s preseason games. Buchelnikov scored three goals over the first two games.
CSKA acquired Buchelnikov from Vityaz in a summer trade. He has one season left on his KHL contract, so he could be heading to North America when his Russian commitment comes to a conclusion in the spring.
I’m surprised that CSKA’s only played in 3 games given that the Russian preseason usually lasts for a month, but that must not include some of the “friendly” games played in early August…
And as far as the 5’10,” 170-pound Buchelnikov is concerned, he turns 22 on September 6th, and hype or no hype, the Red Wings do want to bring him over to the U.S. so that they can monitor both his on-ice development…
And, perhaps more importantly, his physical maturation. There’s no doubt that Buchelnikov has dazzling skills with the puck, but if he doesn’t get his butt into the weight room when his KHL contract ends on the 1st of May, 2026…
We were all dazzled by Kirill Tyutyayev’s ridiculous puck-handling, too, but the 25-year-old who still stands at 5’10” and 176 pounds is entering his second season with the ECHL’s Fort Wayne Komets because his skating and strength don’t keep up with his hands.
It sucks to admit that even the most jaw-droppingly skilled prospects can be long shots if their skill development doesn’t intersect in terms of their physical maturation, their skating abilities, their skill sets and their hockey sense all coming to fruition at the same time…
But that’s the reality of the situation. It’s a hard task to find yourself maturing in terms of your hockey skill set and your mental maturation when you’re a young 20-something. That’s why the Red Wings probably desperately want to get their hands on Buchelnikov before any bad habits become entrenched in his game, and before he maxes out his physical skills.
I’m not about to suggest that Buchelnikov can’t make it, but the longer he stays in Russia, the longer he’s putting up a point-per-game in a league that’s just not as physical or up-tempo as the NHL. Skating on that 100-foot-wide ice instead of NHL-regulation 85-foot-wide rinks affords players the ability to loop back and regroup, regroup some more, and then set up the “perfect play” to penetrate opponents’ defenses, and there just isn’t that kind of time or space in the NHL.
When I watch Buchelnikov, I’m as agog as you are, but when I pull my jaw up off the floor, I remember that those rare pre-Red Wings Prospects/IceHockeyGifs highlights of Tyutyayev dekeing and dangling made some folks believe that he was Pavel Datsyuk 2.0.
Before the proliferation of online highlights, other folks thought that the now-retired Igor Grigorenko would be the next Sergei Fedorov, and as Duff reported, Grigorenko both flamed out after suffering a broken leg after a car accident that required extracting him with the “Jaws of Life” back in 2003, and he just tested positive for a gaggle of performance-enhancing drugs in a test from back in his playing days.
I still remember reading the Sport-Express and Sovetsky Sport articles about Grigorenko’s BMW going off the road into a roadside billboard in Tolyatti, the fact that he was flown all the way to Moscow to have a rod placed in his leg, and how Grigorenko refused to have that rod removed despite the advice of the Wings’ medical staff when he finally came over to the Griffins for one season in 2007.
Long story long, these Russian prospects tend to be wild cards, and if they don’t buy into the North American grind in terms of both “putting in their time” at the AHL level for development’s sake, and “putting in their time” in the gym to bulk up, they don’t make it to the NHL, even if they’ve got Buchelnikov’s hands and hockey sense.
I still believe that Buchelnikov can be a diamond in the rough who beats long odds to make the NHL, but I’ve gotta admit that the deck’s stacked against him.
I don’t mean to stereotype Russian players, but the road of the short, slightly-built skilled prospect to the NHL is an uphill route, regardless of where he comes from.
When and if Buchelnikov comes over to the AHL, he’s going to find that narrower rink intersecting with far less time and space to make those dazzling plays against bigger, stronger and faster opponents who are willing to take the kid’s head off for the sake of putting food on the table.
We’ve also seen everybody from Grigorenko to “Hat Trick Dick” Axelsson, Mattias Ritola and Filip Larsson burn out because they weren’t willing to embrace those long bus rides from Grand Rapids to Rockford or Cleveland to play back-to-back games or even 3-in-3’s some weekends. Some very bright prospects have just checked out and gone home in the middle of the season (hello, Hat Trick Dick) because they can’t take the North American grind in terms of playing 70+ games and riding the bus in order to put in their developmental work in the AHL.
I guess the point of this early-morning, half-hour-spanning rant is to suggest that Dmitri Buchelnikov might be a cautionary tale unless he both comes over to North America after the 2025-2026 season and he buys into the physical, nutritional and on-ice skill development work that he’s going to have to engage in to advance his skill sets.
Those of us with some gray in our beards (that would be me) and memories of Sergei Fedorov, Slava Kozlov and Pavel Datsyuk’s early days know that the KHL and the Russian Superleague that preceded it is still a bit of a wild and woolly league, and that the players who skate in Vladimir Putin’s Russia have very different and disparate levels of professional experience when they come over to the U.S.
Buchelnikov is a little lucky that he’s been traded to the Central Red Army team, which is one of the KHL’s most professional powerhouse franchises, instead of plying his trade in Vladivostok (where he began his KHL career in earnest) or with the recently-folded Vityaz Moscow region (last year’s team), but it’s just not the same as learning how to play North American hockey in North America.
So there are a 2-4’s worth of Kirill Tyutyayevs and Igor Grigorenkos for every Kozlov, and ten times as many prospects for every Fedorov or Datsyuk.
Again, I’m not saying that Buchelnikov can’t make it, nor that he won’t shine when he makes the NHL. I’m just saying that we’re talking about climbing Mt. Everest here, and he’s made it all the way to base camp.
To be the best, you’ve got to battle through hard times in the gym, in the bus and on the ice in the AHL, and then you have to force out an NHL player to “steal a job.” All of that happens while you need to work on your nutrition, your sleep and recovery and more.
I think the biggest wild card for European players of all stripes is the loneliness that they can feel from the lack of structured time in developmental leagues (as opposed to European teams, where players are training together in the team fitness facilities by May or June, the players are engaging in structured sponsorship events and public appearances, and in many cases, European teams take care of players’ living arrangements, sometimes their food and utilities, and even ensuring that the players have a leased car to get around in).
Dropping a player into the AHL or ECHL involves a significant amount of adjusting to being on one’s own for the first time, and having a lot of time to yourself in terms of those weekdays in leagues where the schedule emphasizes weekend games. They’ve got to find their way socially as well, and that isn’t easy when you’re one of few folks who speaks a language, or you’re the only one who speaks your language, and your teammates come from very different backgrounds.
Add it all up, and you’ve got an array of on-ice and off-ice challenges for European players when they do come over to North America. When you add those degrees of difficulty to the “mastering the game” part of the equation, you can see why so many Europeans end up heading back home for a better paycheck, a more structured lifestyle and much easier travel and schedules. It’s really difficult for European players to stick it out in developmental leagues before making the NHL, and when they do make the NHL, it’s hard to find a spot and/or earn ice time, further frustrating the players.
Grind it all out and commit to the process, and you can become an NHL star, but if something doesn’t work out developmentally, your unlikely ascent to the rarefied air of the NHL is incredibly difficult.
Buchelnikov can certainly buck the odds, but the odds are against him. It’s all about having the work ethic and mental fortitude necessary to come over to the U.S. and then grind it out, and that ain’t easy for the most prepared of European players, never mind somebody who’s coming over from the wild and woolly KHL.
I wish him well and I wish him good luck. His skill set is tremendous, but his everything else is going to require hard work, determination and a little grace.
Update: Meanwhile, as I was writing:
Dimitri Buchelnikov(2nd round’22) with a beautiful between the legs pass for a chance off the post. Regroup carries the puck up the boards cycles it down low for another secondary assist🍏🍏 #LGRW pic.twitter.com/SQswFWWEcQ
— Red Wings Prospects (@LGRWProspects) August 30, 2025
Update #2: RWP also Tweeted me letting me know that most KHL teams play on a “hybrid rink” that’s 92 or 93 feet wide, but I stand by my comments.
