How Mikhail Yegorov used puzzles and chess to become a top 2024 NHL Draft goalie prospect

Jun 13, 2024

Credit: Mikhail Yegorov (Amber Badura)

If anyone understands the value of listening to their mother, it’s 2024 NHL Draft prospect Mikhail Yegorov.

From a young age, Yegorov’s mother, Kate, wanted to ensure her son was mentally strong. She had him learn English to help open new opportunities in life while staying focused on the goals he set upon himself.

And from the get-go, Yegorov wanted to be an NHL goaltender. Now, at 18, he’s the top-ranked North American-based goaltender according to NHL Central Scouting, showing that the hard work paid off.

“My Mom helped me a lot,” Yegorov said with a smile. “(Russian mothers) are wise, they tell you everything you need to know.”

And that’s important, because mental fortitude can be a make-it-or-break-it situation for a goaltender. Yegorov went 8-25-3 with the USHL’s Omaha Lancers in his first season in North America, but he was pelted on a nearly nightly basis. He faced 30 shots or more 27 times, including six instances of 45 shots or more.

He only won one game when he faced 35-plus shots in a game – a 2-0 shutout over Lincoln on Nov. 25 – but it’s hard to win without adequate support. It’s also easy to lose your focus when you’re that busy and wins are rare to come by.

But the St. Petersburg, Russia native used the onslaught of rubber sent his way to his advantage.

“Being a young goalie and facing so many shots, I think it helped for me to transition to North America quickly,” Yegorov said. “When I faced a lot of shots and I gave up a lot of goals, I was hard on myself. But then I established my game, and my mental confidence, positive self talk.”

Mikhail Yegorov had one of the best interviews of the #NHLDraft combine.

I asked him who the toughest players to stop in the USHL and he said Trevor Connelly and Matvei Gridin.

But also:

"It wasn't tough to stop Cole Eiserman because I stopped every shot he sent at me. He…
— Steven Ellis (@SEllisHockey) June 8, 2024

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Yegorov moved to the United States because he believed it gave him the best opportunity to get noticed and selected by an NHL team. Going to Omaha allowed Yegorov to easily secure the No. 1 position and face a ton of action early, something that isn’t always the case for draft-eligibles.

“I think it was just so great for me to experience so many shots and so many dangerous shots as well. If you just have shots from the outside, it doesn’t help. But when I faced all those breakaways, and really dangerous shots, it was really great for me.”

Scouts agree with all of that.

“Goalies don’t gain a ton when they’re just making 20 saves a game, allowing a goal or two, not facing many high-end chances,” a scout said. “You want to see goalies peppered and see how they react, and Yegorov always seemed to stay mentally strong and focused no matter the obstacles.”

Yegorov likes to do whatever it takes to stay mentally sharp, and that includes playing video games. But not ones you would typically expect from a teenager.

“I love puzzle games,” he said. “All the puzzles games are made by little studies. They try to find different ways of gameplay, so every puzzle game has different styles of gameplay. For example, shooters you just walk and shoot, basically. In puzzle games, they’re completely different, so I like the variety of them.”

He also tries to play chess on Chess.com at least once a day while reading fantasy or modern classics – Catcher in the Rye, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Flowers for Algernon are his favorites. But chess, in particular, is something he finds valuable to helping himself in hockey.

“I think it helps my brain to work quicker and sharper to analyze information quicker and just make decisions,” Yegorov said. “In chess, I need to analyze the whole board, and in hockey, I need to analyze the whole zone and every player.”

So he’s got the mental game going for him, he can handle the heavy workload, but he also has the size. At 6-foot-5, that’s the frame NHL teams crave. Scouts want him to be quicker, but they also wonder if he deals with fatigue more than the average goalie based on his workload. From a raw skills perspective, though, he’s a good skater, has an excellent glove hand, covers a lot of the net and tracks pucks well, especially through traffic. Yegorov is positionally sound, and he’s one of the best at keeping pucks out of the net down low, thanks to his great leg span.

“You look at the numbers and they obviously don’t look good,” FloHockey’s Chris Peters said. “But you understand the team context and you look at the games where he did look good, facing a lot of shots, he kept the team in games a lot. And you see the size and all the pro traits.”

Still, there’s work to be done.

“His footwork looks choppy at times, and he’ll get beat because he’ll stutter step or second guess himself,” a scout said. “There are also instances of him seemingly giving up late in games. You don’t like to see it, but, at the same time, you have to wonder how he’d perform in a more competitive environment.”

And, maybe, facing the shot count Yegorov did all year could have its downsides.

“When you’re under siege so much, you wonder if he’s ever really able to develop a level of consistency or a level of comfort, so you’re doing a lot of projecting,” Peters added. “When you look at the goalie class, I think you bet on the tools and the size. And I think that, to me, is why he’s going to probably be one of the top goalies to be selected.”

Yegorov scored extremely well at the combine, finishing sixth in vertical jump (23.27 inches), third in horizontal jump (115.8 inches) and seventh in pull-ups (12). Combined with his pure physical size and excellent conditioning, and there’s a lot to like there. Some scouts see him as the top goalie available, while others see him as more of a third- or fourth-rounder. There are still a lot of unknowns about his real potential, and it might not be until he heads to Boston University in 2025-26 that he shows a bit more stability in his game.

But if you’re banking on pure potential? In a draft class with very few notable goalie prospects, Yegorov is definitely worth taking a chance on.

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