Where is Shakir Mukhamadullin in his development right now?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s been a topic of conversation recently, coming to a head on Tuesday, when San Jose Sharks head coach Ryan Warsofsky scratched Mukhamadullin in favor of Nick Leddy before a pivotal game at the Edmonton Oilers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a head-scratcher for sure,\u201d an NHL scout, not with the Sharks, told San Jose Hockey Now. \u201cCoaches typically trust vets, but Leddy has been bad [so far this year].\u201d<\/p>\n
For context, Leddy, 35, has 1,063 NHL regular season games and a Stanley Cup under his belt, but he also, up to the 5-3 loss at Edmonton, had only played one professional game in two months. The $4 million AAV blueliner had passed through waivers in this time and made a single appearance for the San Jose Barracuda.<\/p>\n
Mukhamadullin, on the other hand, is 24, a 2020 first-round pick, still lots of hockey ahead of him. One of the prized acquisitions from the Timo Meier trade in 2023, the 6-foot-4 blueliner has clear big league tools, from his skating and reach and puck-moving. But his growth has been stalled, at times, by a variety of factors, from injuries to getting benched to his own play.<\/p>\n
On the surface, the San Jose Sharks sitting Mukhamadullin for Leddy, before their biggest game of the season, made zero sense.<\/p>\n
But this scout, who has watched Mukhamadullin since the Olympic break, including his \u201cbreakout\u201d game on Feb. 28 against the Oilers, shared a candid perspective on where the young Russian\u2019s game is right now\u2026for better and worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Where is Shakir Mukhamadullin in his development right now? That\u2019s been a topic of conversation recently, coming to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":674782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[42],"tags":[1322,293,28397,42930,1328,281987,35846,44270,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-674781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-featured","tag-nhl","tag-nick-leddy","tag-ryan-warsofsky","tag-san-jose-sharks","tag-scout","tag-shakir-mukhamadullin","tag-sjhn","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116275489478164707","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}