Guest
’The Rise’ by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. The 6’1, 176lb center is coming off of a KHL championship while playing a defensive role for Avangard Omsk. He put up 10 goals and 26 points in 60 regular-season games this season to go along with nine points in 23 playoff games. Semyonov is a client of agent Dan Milstein, who also represents a number of prominent Russian NHL players. There is a long list of current and former Leafs that Milstein represents, including Nikita Zaitsev, Alexander Barabanov, Rodion Amirov, Artur Akhtyamov, Semyon Der-Arguchintsev, and Ilya Mikheyev. If nothing else, this signing signals once again that the Leafs organization clearly maintains a strong relationship with Milstein and is generally well-respected by European UDFAs. They have been able to maintain this relationship by acquiring a number of these types of players, treating them well, providing them with opportunities, and shipping them off to a different organization if they cannot make it work in Toronto (e.g. Alex Barabanov, Mikko Lehtonen). With this relationship and reputation in place, they will continue to be the favourites for a number of highly-touted UDFAs, and while not all of them work out, some will. Ilya Mikheyev, a former UDFA himself, has carved out a role as a strong depth forward/penalty kill option, and he’s a fan favourite to boot.
