Blackhawks Draft: 3 defenseman to consider with the 19th overall pick

2. Dmitri Simashev

There are two great Russian defensemen that the Chicago Blackhawks can take.

Dmitry Simashev is one of the best defensemen in the entire NHL Draft. He will certainly be one of the top five guys taken at that position.

Simashev, like Gulyayev, is from Russia as well. Also like the aforementioned Gulyayev, he played some games in the KHL last year in addition to playing with some of their affiliates.

His club is the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl. In 18 games spent with them, he didn’t have a single point. It doesn’t appear as if the offense is his strong suit though as he didn’t light the world on fire in terms of points in the lower levels either.

Points aren’t everything when you can defend. A pick like that might not be the most exciting of all time but players like Simashev are needed on winning squads.

Drafting a player like this always has its risk because if the defensive side of the game never takes a step then they really don’t have much value but Simashev should end up being a really nice NHL player one day.