Now the Bruins have an excellent cast of young, talented defenseman spread equally throughout the farm system, juniors, and Europe. We talked about Matt Gryzelcyk, spent some time on Torey Krug, but in my humble opinion (and the opinion of many) the top defensive prospect is Russian-born Maxime Chudinov.Despite being a 7th round pick (195 overall) in the 2010 NHL entry draft Chudinov has done nothing but impress since his draft day. He was a typical late-round pick, undersized for a defenseman but skilled. He's the type of player an NHL team will draft with little expectation, thinking he's had some success in Russia, maybe he'll blossom. Well, has this kid ever blossomed.
Known as more of an offensive minded d-man, 22 year old Chudinov has always had great vision an point scoring abilities. In the two seasons since he was drafted he has scored 23 and 35 pts respectively in the KHL. Obviously this is outstanding, as most forwards his age would be overly content with such numbers, but the stat that has scouts excited is his plus/minus.
The plus/minus is quickly becoming the most highly regarded stat for defenseman in professional hockey. Chudinov was +5 two seasons ago and +8 last year. Admittedly these aren't the most unheard of stats, but considering how far south of 0 he has been in the past, this is a vast improvement. If he can continue to sew up his play in the defensive end as well as continuing to blossom more and more offensively look for Chudinov to join the B's quite soon!
References:
hockeydb.com
bruins.nhl.com
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