Alexei Zaitsev (Aleksey Zaytsev)

Zaitsev is a slightly below average sized left shot center. He is strong two-way player who contributes to both the power play and penalty kill units. As the puck carrier on line rushes his eyes are up and he shows the skating ability to seamlessly adjust his pace so he can take advantage of the defender’s gaps. As a left shot he is very comfortable coming down his off wing, dipping a shoulder to fake going hard wide and then cutting hard to his left into the open ice in the high slot. We would like to see him shoot more often after cutting into the high slot as only 24 of his 124 attempted shots have come from the extended high slot. At this point we view Zaitsev as a long shot to be drafted, but he is a 200′ center who wins puck battles in all three zones.