Puck Daddy has a great interview with Nikita Filatov, which you can find here. The young man displays a lot of moxy in responding to some pretty pointed questions from countryman Dmitry Chesnokov about his decision to go to the NHL, despite having offers from the KHL for "...lots more. Times more", to quote Nikita.Good news is that Filatov has put on about 17 pounds so far in the off-season, and is looking to add another 5 pounds of muscle or so. Also some great parts showing that he is still a kid -- framing Gary Bettman's letter of congratulations after the hat trick, and calling home to Moscow to get instructions on how to fry potatoes while living in his solo apartment in Syracuse.
Really good stuff, and shows he is committed to becoming a mainstay for the CBJ this year. Interestingly, he mentions that he trained with Ilya Kovalchuk in the off-season, noting that they have the same conditioning coach, and pointedly said zip, nada, nothing about Zherdev, who also trained with them. Interesting . . .
Make no mistake, the KHL will be relentless in their pursuit of Filatov when his entry level deal expires. However, Nikita obviously holds Kovalchuk in very high regard, and you can read between the lines that he wants to make his name in the NHL.
Really good stuff!
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