When you select a 21 year old goaltender with your first pick in the NHL Draft, there’s likely an expectation that the wait for them to arrive in the NHL will be shorter than your standard second round pick. Ilya Nabokov’s dominant KHL season put him on the radar for NHL teams, and the Avalanche selected the Russian netminder with the 38th pick, despite him being the oldest goalie prospect in the draft.

After Colorado made the selection, I reached out to Nabokov’s representation to see when the KHL Rookie Of The Year might arrive in North America.

“We’ll make a decision soon,” his agent Shumi Babaev told CHN.

While I don’t believe an official decision has been made, it doesn’t sound like the Avalanche will have to wait that long for Nabokov to cross the pond.

Like I mentioned over the weekend, I’d be surprised if Nabokov came overseas to join Colorado this summer. He has one year left on his KHL deal and is in a good situation next season, as he’s set to start for Metallurg again. There’s no real reason to rush him over just yet. After that, all bets are off.

In a new interview over in Russia, Babaev discussed why the country has been able to develop so many good goaltenders, which is something I’ll write about soon. The article from Vedomasti.ru also included this little nugget on the topic of Nabokov…

Nabokov’s agent Babayev believes in a successful career of the client in the NHL, but believes that the player needs a year or two to psychologically and physically become fully ready to play in the American league.

Everything I’ve heard so far would seem to indicate Nabokov coming over for the 2025-26 season is a realistic possibility, but there are a lot of factors still in play. For as dominant as he was last season, it was still his first year in the KHL. He didn’t start the year as the #1 goaltender, but took over most of the workload about a month and a half into the season.

It would be fair to expect Nabokov to spend time in the AHL to adjust to the smaller ice, but you never know. He might come over ready to step right into the NHL. There are pretty recent examples for both scenarios.

Both Andrei Vasilevsky and Igor Shesterkin spent a little bit of time in the AHL before becoming full-time NHL players, while Ilya Sorokin and Sergei Bobrovsky never played a second in the AHL. All four of those goaltenders came to North America at different ages. Vasilevsky was just 20, while Bobrovsky was 22, Shesterkin was 23, and Sorokin was 24.

CHN is making efforts to speak to Nabokov this summer, but nothing is set up or guaranteed. We’ll continue to monitor the situation, as Nabokov will be someone Avalanche fans will want to keep a close eye on this upcoming season. KHL training camps open in early August.