Canadiens: Grounded Demidov Sees Opportunity

A few of Montreal Canadiens prospect Ivan Demidov's teammates with SKA St. Petersburg have recently spoken to journalist Sergey Demidov (no relation to the young phenomenon) of RG.org and confirmed the young right winger is seeing the bright side of things.

While people on this side of the ocean worry about Demidov's development path being troubled by his lack of ice time in the KHL, a few of his teammates with SKA St. Petersburg had reassuring words for Canadiens fans.

Evgeny Kuznetsov, Arseni Gritsyuk, Sergei Andronov, Mikhail Grigorenko and Tony DeAngelo are all signing the young Russian's praises in no uncertain terms. Reading the interview, it sounds like Demidov is taking is limited usage on the chin and it doesn't change the way he behaves or his outlook on his career.

Even if he's been used as the 13th forward of late, he's not letting it get to him and has the capacity to turn over a new leaf every day. No matter what happens, whether it be great success or an unfortunate event, he'll leave it in the pass and move on.

By moving on, I mean get back to work with the same positive attitude, roll up his sleeve and still be keen to learn and improve. The players are also impressed by the fact such a talented individual is that keen to learn and improve. We've all seen people who are so talented that they believe they are above being taught anything but it's not the case with him.

Furthermore, they are impressed with the way he deals with adversity. In his mind, he probably wasn't going to sit so much this season, but he's not letting that get him down. They believe this is a great sign for his future in the NHL, should he need some time in the AHL, he's not going to throw his toys out of the pram, he's just going to get with the program.

Watching the impact Parik Laine's return had on the game last night, the addition of a player like Demidov in the future will do wonders. Adding a talented player forces your opponent to respect you more, if you have more options for production, you're harder to play against and that was quite obvious last night on the power play.

On the penalty kill, the New York Islanders couldn't just cover Cole Caufield as the main shooter, there was another threatening option on the other side in Laine. If and when Demidov joins that first power play unit, he'll have that kind of impact as well (once used to the North American game of course) and something tell me coach Martin St-Louis might just be salivating at the thought right now.

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