Unlike Ivan Demidov last season, Montreal Canadiens' prospect Alexander Zharovsky is playing for a struggling team in Salavat Yualev. Before the youngster started his season, the team had a single win in seven games (none in regulation), but since he started playing, they have seven regulation wins in 13 games.
On Friday, the youngster added two power-play assists, bringing his total to 14 points in 13 games. The time he spends on the ice is also increasing; he played for 14:19 in the match against Admiral Vladivostok, and that included 4:56 of power-play ice time. Furthermore, he took four faceoffs and won them all.
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Salavat is now eighth in the East conference with 18 points, two points out of last place. While their odds of qualifying for the playoffs are not exactly great, it’s still an excellent experience for the youngster to play such a significant role on a struggling team.
As things stand, he’s Salavat’s second top-scorer, trailing Maxim Kuznetsov by only two points since he’s got 16 points in 20 games. The points leader also averages 16:25 of time on ice, which is much more than Zharosky. If the youngster continues playing as he is right now, he should overtake him in no time.
Zharovsky and co. will play their next game on Tuesday when they take on Yaroslav Lokomotiv, who are currently third in the standings, and feature former Hab Alexander Radulov, who leads his team in scoring with 21 points in 20 games.
While he was a second-round pick, the Canadiens haven’t been shy about saying they would have used one of their first-round picks to draft him if they didn’t have to trade them to land Noah Dobson from the New York Islanders.
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