After acquiring the 119th overall pick in the fourth round from the Chicago Blackhawks in the 2026 NHL Entry Draft when they traded down from 35th to 37th in the second round, the New Jersey Devils selected Lavr Gashilov from Avto Yekaterinburg of the MHL. In the 2025-26 season, Gashilov scored 16 goals and had 53 assisst in 51 MHL games while also getting into two VHL games and three KHL games. Gashilov stands at 5’11” and 185 pounds (per Elite Propsects, though he is listed much taller elsewhere [as high as 6’3″, with the KHL having him at 6’2″]) and is a left-handed center. Per Byron Bader’s Hockey Prospecting, Gashilov may be the steal of the later rounds with first-round level production.
Gashilov is highly regarded as a playmaker with defensive deficiencies. However, he looks pretty good in the offensive zone! In HSD Prospects’ highlight package on him, you can see just how lethal a passer he is from anywhere on the ice.
In Smaht Scouting’s midseason rankings, Gashilov was ranked 38th. However, they did knock him for his skating. Here’s what Dan Haurin had to say about him there:
He plays with an above average motor, constantly keeping his feet moving and involving himself in the play. He also plays a strong physical game, putting bodies on opposition every chance he gets, while showing an ability to make quick plays to teammates while tangled up in battles. He’s got some soft hands and an ability to feather pucks through tight lanes to teammates in the offensive zone. The skating is a question at this point in his development however, with his strides being a bit too choppy and lacking an element of explosiveness and quickness on his edges.
This does contrast with NHL Network’s view of the player, where he was regarded as a plus skater who completely lacks physicality. I guess we will see. Watching him skate in his highlight package, I do tend towards the Smaht Scouting view of him. He seems like far less of a rush threat than the forwards the Devils have previously selected this draft, and his soft hands and high-level offensive IQ should be a boon to the Devils when they do establish possession. He looks like a PP1-type player who probably should not play on a shutdown line, which is fine. Player development should focus on maximizing strengths and minimizing weaknesses, rather than washing over what makes a player valuable in the first place.
Importantly, Gashilov is only under contract through the 2026-27 season. If he does not get established in the KHL by the end of this season, he could very easily be signed by Sunny Mehta to play in the AHL or NHL after the upcoming year. Since Gashilov is coming out of the MHL, I could very well see him going to the VHL to continue developing his skills in the second-tier Russian league. He certainly has little left to learn in Russian juniors.
In all, I am a fan of these picks. Our previous GM regime put little value on these kinds of high-scoring, low-risk picks in the later rounds, and that has seemed to reflect in the lack of prospect viability over the last few years. Gashilov has a lottery-level NHLe. And while I wish I could have the data to look at his microstats to evaluate his playdriving ability, what publicly available analytics we can see seem to like him as well.
But what do you think of this pick? Do you like it? Vote in our flash poll here.
