Photo Credit: https://hockey.by & Павел Мойсевич (vk.com/ska)

If you look around the NHL right now, it would appear as though just about every single successful team has a former KHL netminder guarding their crease. The Florida Panthers have Sergei Bobrovsky, the Tampa Bay Lightning have Andrei Vasilevskiy, the New York Rangers have Igor Shesterkin, the New York Islanders have Ilya Sorokin, the Toronto Maple Leafs have Ilya Samsonov, and the Carolina Hurricanes have Pyotr Kochetkov.

This has led to many teams scrabbling to try and replicate these teams’ success by drafting or signing one of these KHL-trained goalies of their own. Some examples of this would be up-and-comers like Nashville’s Yaroslav Askarov, Columbus’ Daniil Tarasov, and Philadelphia’s Ivan Fedotov.

Fear not, though; this newfound goaltender factory shows no signs of slowing down any time soon as I have found possibly the next guardian of the blue paint to come off this well-oiled assembly line.

His name is Pavel Moysevich, and he is a 6’5, 176-pound 19-year-old who hails from Belarus. He is eligible for this year’s draft but is currently being overlooked by most because he is not your typical 17-18-year-old prospect.

But in my mind, this should not be viewed as a problem because, as we all know, goaltenders, above any other position out on the ice, typically take the longest to develop.

Besides, the reason for scouts grossly overlooking this talented young netminder anyway is to no fault of his own. It had to do more with the fact that his team, the SKA St. Petersburg’s “Red Army Team,” had a plethora of goalies on their roster this season, which included veteran netminder Nikita Serebryakov who took up the majority of the starts, as well as the promising 21-year-old Artemi Pleshkov, and the Blue Jackets 19-year-old prospect Sergei Ivanov.

So, after reading this, it should become a little clearer to you why a talented young netminder who played in just thirteen games in the KHL this year was able to go seemingly unnoticed by some. But I’m telling you, he shouldn’t have! Because during his limited time in net he was able to post a 1.25 goals against average (G.A.A.) and a .942 save percentage (SV%) during the regular season.

And in the postseason, Moysevich may have only seen ice time in one game this year for the Red Army, but he was able to post a very impressive 1.21 G.A.A. and a .941 SV% when called upon.

Unfortunately, Pavel had the same luck in international competition this year as well when he was forced to sit and watch as the Flyers’ 22-year-old prospect Alexei Kolosov was awarded more playing time for Belarus than him.

And that’s why I think he should be considered a steal for teams in the later rounds of this summer’s draft. As it stands now, only he and Serebryakov are under contract with SKA for next season. So, Pavel should get a lot more time between the pipes next year. And if that proves to be the case, then you can rest assured that this highly trained towering netminder will make it a point to make the teams who passed on him regret their decisions.

Moysevich is projected to go by some in the seventh round of this year’s draft for all the reasons listed above. With that being said, he should be considered a project that’s worth the wait, as he is contractually obligated to St. Petersburg until the end of the 26/27 season. During which time, he will surely continue to develop his game.