This week is all about the draft and prospects at NHL FanSided, and one player who deserves some reflection is the late Alexei Cherepanov. Nicknamed the "Siberian Express", Cherepanov was selected by the New York Rangers at No. 17 overall at the 2007 NHL Draft, even though he was one of the top players in terms of skill in the draft.
Cherepanov fell in the draft because some teams were skeptical he would come to the NHL, something that Bob McKenzie of TSN thought was silly. The Rangers former prospect simply wanted to play a season for his hometown team in Omsk, and the plan was for him to come to the league after that commitment was fulfilled.
He tragically never got that chance, as he collapsed on the bench during the third period of a game in the KHL played on October 13, 2008, and ultimately passed away. Attempts to revive Cherepanov were unsuccessful, and an autopsy later claimed he had an underlying heart condition.
"Team doctors are not to blame for the death of rising star Alexei Cherepanov, who collapsed during a Continental Hockey League game last year in Russia, investigators said Thursday. Doctors with the Siberian team Avangard Omsk had no reason to suspect that the 19-year-old Cherepanov suffered from a chronic heart problem and did not prescribe the medicine he was taking, the federal Investigative Committee said. Team doctors will not face a criminal investigation, it said."
It was determined Cherepanov ultimately had myocarditis which is a condition that obstructed blood flow to his heart and other organs according to the AP. The family of Cherepanov disputed the results of the autopsy, and felt the team should have done a better job monitoring and taking care of him, and there was more to the story.
The entire ordeal remains very tragic, and his death remains one of the biggest what if moments as far as Ranger prospects go. There was a lot of belief in Cherepanov as a player, and many felt he could be an elite scorer in the NHL.
One reason scouts felt this way is that Cherepanov as a rookie finished with more points than Evgeni Malkin, Alex Ovechkin, and Ilya Kovalchuk did, and he also claimed the rookie goal scoring record once held by Pavel Bure. All of those players had very successful careers, and while you can't predict what Cherepanov would have exactly done, the early success certainly suggests he was on the right track.
Cherepanov stood 6'1" and weighed 183 pounds, and as a teenager in the Russian Superleague, the league that ultimately became the KHL, posted a line of 18-11-29 in 46 games in 2006-07, and 15-12-27 in 46 games in 2007-08. In the KHL, Cherepanov had a line of 8-5-13 in 19 games prior to his death, and when you combine the three seasons together you get a sense of what type of player he was becoming.
Cherepanov's memory lives on in the KHL, as the Alexei Cherepanov award is given out annually to the league's top prospect. This October will mark the 17th anniversary of his death, and had he avoided that tragedy, there's a chance he'd still be playing in the NHL now. It's not hard to imagine Cherepanov playing a role on the 2010s teams that pushed for a Stanley Cup, and if he lived up to his potential, he could have been one of the better Blueshirts in franchise history.