The 2020 NHL Draft was a unique one in league history — it’s the only one that happened in October, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.
While there were significant challenges preparing for that draft — no combine, no in-person interviews chief among them — it offered NHL teams a rare opportunity, because some leagues around the globe had already started their 2020-21 campaign so some prospects were already into their draft-plus-one season … before the draft took place.
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Shakir Mukhamadullin was one player who took advantage of this. A strong start for Salavat Ufa in the KHL helped make him a first-round pick by the New Jersey Devils. Being selected at No. 20, when most draft experts pegged him as a mid-t0-late second-round pick — Elite Prospects left him off its top 129 prospects altogether — immediately made Mukhamadullin one of the most divisive prospects in the sport.
The near-consensus opinion on Mukhamadullin since October 2020 is that he’s improved his stock as a prospect. Some prospect evaluators, most notably The Athletic’s Corey Pronman and TSN’s Craig Button, are quite high on him. Others have acknowledged his improvement, but still aren’t sure what to make of his NHL future.
Then he became the most high-profile prospect traded at the 2023 NHL deadline, for the best player who was moved, Timo Meier, and now he’s the Sharks’ top defense prospect.
“We really like the player,” Sharks general manager Mike Grier said after the trade. “You don’t find too many 6-foot-4 D who are mobile and can defend, but also add some offense. I think he was the leading defenseman on his team in scoring. We just think there is tons and tons of upside in this kid. He’s just starting to figure out what he is as a player and I think there is so much more to come. I don’t think you can just find the kind of package that he has. He’s someone we can envision being in the top four for a long, long time.”
That Mukhamadullin was the top prospect in a 13-asset trade and not one of a few other top-end young players from New Jersey sparked even more discourse about his game. His season in the KHL ended, and now he has played four games with the Barracuda in the AHL.
Sharks coach David Quinn said the plan was to just see how it goes for him in the AHL before thinking about giving him a potential NHL debut before the end of this season.
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“I hear that everybody says he passes the eye test,” Quinn said when asked what the reports on Mukhamadullin have been. “I think we have to keep it in perspective. This is a kid who is coming over here to play for the first time. He speaks very little English. It’s completely different hockey. If you dropped all of us in Magnitogorsk and asked us to go play hockey it would be a pretty overwhelming situation.
“But I was just talking to Joe Thornton about him. I said, ‘How’s he look?’ And he goes, ‘He looks like an NHLer,’ so that’s good enough for me.”
So what type of defenseman is Mukhamadullin now, and what might he be in the future? I poured over several hours of film, from games with Ufa in the KHL, with Russia at a couple of high-profile amateur tournaments and his first two home games with the Barracuda.
Let’s start where Quinn did: Mukhamadullin is huge. I talked with him and Nikita Okhotiuk briefly in the Tech CU Arena press box shortly after the trade before Mukhamadullin started playing (Okhotiuk is injured and not expecting to play again this season). I am 5-foot-11, and Okhotiuk is a little taller than me (he’s listed at 6-foot-1). Mukhamadullin is much taller than both of us.
Mukhamadullin skates well, especially for someone his size. He’s not particularly quick, but once he gets moving, he can cover a lot of ground quickly.
When he has time and space, he’s very smooth — both as a skater and with the puck. When he’s pressured … well, that’s going to make or break just how good he can be at the NHL level. That part of his game has been a work in progress, and how he adjusts to the smaller ice surfaces over here and having less time and space more often will be a critical part of his development.
“I like him,” Barracuda coach John McCarthy said. “He’s a big body. He skates well, moves the puck well, handles the puck well. I think he’s showing a lot of good things.”
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Mukhamadullin, who turned 21 in January, had six goals and 25 points in 67 games for Ufa. He led the club in points by a defenseman. He was fourth in the KHL in points among U25 defensemen, though the three guys who had more were all also 21. It is a hard league for young defensemen to earn ice time and produce in, unless you are Carolina prospect Alexander Nikishin — he had 55 points for SKA St. Petersburg, while the other two guys ahead of Mukhamadullin had 27 and 26.
A lot of his offense for Ufa came from his ability to shoot and get pucks on net. A bunch of his assists were on tips and rebounds.
He had one goal in Ufa’s first-round playoff loss. Here it is:

Here’s a look at a slap shot and a wrist shot in quick succession, the second one leading to a rebound goal:
He’s also shown the ability and willingness to take the puck to the net. Here are two more assists from rebounds he created:

If you’ve watched any of his first four games with the Barracuda, there haven’t been a lot of flashy plays, but he’s got some of that in his bag …

This wasn’t a goal, but this short-handed play is a little taste of his skill after he out-skates a couple of guys …
Mukhamadullin can pass the puck, too. He’s pretty good at moving it around the perimeter on the power play, hitting guys on the tape on breakouts and he can make some nice touch passes in traffic.
One of the core strengths of Mukhamadullin’s game should be his ability to help get the puck moving in the right direction. We’ll get to his defensive work in his own zone, but his ability to skate with the puck and pass could make him an effective kickstarter of the offense.
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This is a great play in the neutral zone under some duress …

He makes putting an outlet pass like this on a teammate’s stick look pretty easy …

He can also be a one-man breakout. It will be interesting to see how quickly he can build the confidence to make end-to-end rushes on the smaller ice surface, or if he’ll be able to execute them successfully. Here are a couple examples …
Some people just want to see points and hits from a defenseman, but zone entries (and denying them) are extremely valuable in the NHL these days. These types of plays from a guy his size are going to get scouts and GMs excited …

Mukhamadullin is probably not ready to bang bodies with NHL veterans along the walls and around his net. He’s got more work to do in the weight room, and how much strength he can add to his wiry frame could play a big part in how or when he can get close to his ceiling as a player.
Positionally, he’s able to defend a lot of ground because of his long reach. He does a lot of his work along the boards now with his stick, but he’s also not getting knocked around like someone’s little brother every night, either.
Here’s one play where he didn’t corral the puck at first, which put him in harm’s way, but he was able to problem-solve and get out of the danger zone …

He’s also not afraid to hit people. Here’s one play where he angles the puck carrier into no man’s land and then erases him …

… and another play where he wipes out a rush in the neutral zone, then collects himself and makes a skilled play to get the puck out of harm’s way (the video cuts off but he makes a backhanded pass to his defense partner and Ufa goes the other way).
He’s certainly not afraid of physical contact. This was a collision with Sam Colangelo (listed at 6-foot-2, 205 pounds) two minutes into a world juniors game against the United States. Mukhamadullin didn’t exactly get the best of that, but Colangelo was the biggest forward on the U.S. roster so there might have been a little message sending in that moment — both to the Americans and to his teammates.

Here’s another fun defensive play. First, a screenshot. Mukhamadullin is not the Ufa player skating backwards. He’s the guy in the middle of the ice at the blue line.

Sharks fans have seen plays similar to this before from Brent Burns, but this really shows off Mukhamadullin’s pterodactyl-like reach.

OK, so that’s a lot of positive clips. And for good reason — he’s got an intriguing collection of good genes and hockey skills. It’s not hard to watch some highlights and get excited about what he might be when grows up.
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But, there is a reason why some talent evaluators have been skeptical. The number one reason is there are times when he doesn’t make plays or reads fast enough. Even in the KHL, where there is more ice and the game generally moves at a slower place, you can find instances where slow decision-making hurts him. And sometimes, that leads to an outright, “what is he doing there?” kind of moment.
Like, this one …

He’s trying to get the puck back to his defense partner while the forwards are all heading toward the offensive zone, but it goes bad.
Here’s another play where he takes his time, and skates himself into danger.

Now, there were two forwards going for a line change, and it looks like there was a miscommunication at the bench — the two new guys didn’t come on fast enough. But he had a safe option (behind the net) and a risky-ish one (the forward in the middle of the zone) and either might have been better than skating into the corner and into a turnover.
One previous criticism of his game is that he can get too conservative with the puck in his own zone when under duress. This situation called for a conservative play up the boards or off the glass, but instead it was a bad turnover and a goal against.

And this was one of the notable plays where he looked pretty bad in a big spot during the WJC. Beyond just not being particularly quick in his first couple strides, Mukhamadullin has had troubles at times with not pivoting at the right time or being slow to do it and ending up chasing a player who has a step or two on him.

Here’s a sequence where Mukhamadullin, playing as an underage kid at the U18 world championships in 2019, is trying to deal with a U.S. forward line of Jack Hughes, Trevor Zegras and Cole Caufield — yeah, you read that correctly. (Russia eventually won this game because Yaroslav Askarov was incredible). Mukhamadullin was pretty good in that game, especially for a 16-year-old trying to deal with one of the most talented American forward groups ever assembled.
So how is Mukhamadullin adjusting to life in the AHL?
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He has one assist and three shots on goal in four games. He played 18:02 and 18:18 in the games at Colorado, then 15:05 and 14:55 in the two home tilts against Bakersfield, in part because the Barracuda dressed seven defensemen.
Here’s a good sequence from Saturday. His initial shot didn’t get to the net, but he made a quick read to eliminate a counter-attack before it could even start, and in doing so this led to a goal on the same possession a few seconds later.

This wasn’t the prettiest play, but it was effective.
He did kill the play on defense, although he almost didn’t get enough on it to get the puck out of danger. The second part was better — puck came to him, and he quickly found an outlet.
Break it up going backwards, break it out going forwards — those sequences can be extremely valuable.
Here’s a good example of the good and the bad in quick succession. This starts out looking great, but his decision to turn back proved to be the wrong one.
One of the biggest adjustments for European players is how much more north-south NHL/AHL hockey can be. There just isn’t as much open ice to make moves like that, and the faster pace means forecheckers are going to see that and smell blood in the water.
This was a nice sequence for Mukhamadullin. He made a “strong stick” play along the wall to keep the puck in and the offensive zone possession and then made a great pass into a tight window.
He definitely looks comfortable on the power play already. This was a good little play to wait out the guy coming at him and set up Brandon Coe for a shot.

Mukhamadullin definitely played better on Saturday than he did on Sunday, which was a quick turnaround (3 p.m. start the day after a 6 p.m. game). He didn’t have any back-to-back games in the KHL regular season, though oddly there were two sets of back-to-backs in the first-round playoff series. The Barracuda as a whole also played much better in the first of the two games against the Condors.
Here’s one nice play from Mukhamadullin’s game, a deft little neutral-zone pass to Thomas Bordeleau to start a possession …
And this was one of those “uh oh” moments …
That is probably a simple rink geometry adjustment — that pass/play might work in the KHL, but it was too slow developing on Sunday.
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It’s also worth noting that there were times this past weekend where it looked like Mukhamadullin was thinking about where he should be, instead of just being where he should be. Andreas Johnsson is 28 and has played more than 250 NHL games, and he recently said after a Sharks game that there were times when he caught himself reverting back to the Devils’ system and needed to quickly correct his positioning.
Mukhamadullin has a few important things to work on — adding strength, adjusting to North American hockey and continuing to improve the consistency of his play-making and decision-making when he’s got forecheckers hounding him. The Sharks may give him a look at the NHL level between now and the end of the season, but it’s still probably a good bet that he’ll spend some time adjusting to the smaller ice with the Barracuda at the start of next year.
But the raw tools are pretty obvious, and there is a potentially fun (and valuable) player in there … he’s got some skill, some flash and he could be a menace for opposing forwards as he fills out physically.
“I watched him when he was in the (AHL) playoffs last year with Utica, then when we got him I watched a little bit of film on him,” McCarthy said. “He adds some offense on the power play. He can get his shot through from the OZ blue (line). He can retrieve pucks and move pucks. He has a little deception to him, and I think he’s showing that.”
(Photo: Codie McLachlan / Getty Images)
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