Back in May, the New York Islanders signed one of the top names Kontinental Hockey League free agents to a one-year deal. Maxim Tsyplakov is a 25-year-old forward from Moscow, Russia. His offensive production could be an X-factor on whether the Islanders make the playoffs this upcoming season.
He joins three fellow Russians on the Islanders roster, Ilya Sorokin , Semyon Varlamov and Alexander Romanov.
Tsyplakov has spent all of his 327 career games played with Moscow Spartak of the KHL. He came up and made his debut in the top Russian league at the age of 19 during the 2017-18 season. His offense came in spurts but finally he has been able to catch a stride. During the previous 2023-24 season, he scored 31 goals and 47 points in 65 games, good for fourth in the league in goals.
This is good for an NHL pace of about 21 goals and 41 points in a full 82 game season. Tsyplakov will most likely be paired with two different 30 goal scorers on the second line. Brock Nelson scored 34 goals and Kyle Palmieri scored 30 goals during the previous campaign.
The 25-year-old Russian brings another goal-scoring presence to that line. His ability to drive the net will be a great addition to that line’s production. Although one
thing he will have to work on is his skating, he is not fast on his feet. But Nelson and Palmieri can make up for that with their legs, so it shouldn’t be a big issue.
As for an NHL comparable points wise, Ilya Mikheyev is as close to a scenario as you can get. Not only did Mikheyev also come over to the NHL as a 25-year-old, his KHL point numbers are very similar to Tsyplakov as well.
Mikheyev started off slow, but after a 23 goal and 45–point performance in his final season in the KHL, he inked a deal to join the Toronto Maple Leafs for the 2019-20 season.
Mikheyev is yet to play a full 82 game season in the NHL, his most being last year when he played 78. But his point per game numbers have been solid, 270 games played with 131 points. His best two seasons came in 2021-22 where he had a 0.60 P/GP, and in 2022-23 where he finished with a 0.61 P/GP.
In 2021-22, he had 21 goals and 32 points in 53 games played. Then in the 2022-23 campaign he had 13 goals and 28 points in 46 games played. These numbers are an indication of what Tsyplakov can and hopefully will produce in the NHL through his first couple seasons.
One of the biggest issues the Islanders had last season was that they had two really good duos on the first and second lines, but not a third person to pair with them. These being Nelson and Palmieri on line two and then Mat Barzal and Bo Horvat on line one. All season long different players were being slotted into both places but nothing could quite click.
The addition of Tsyplakov and fellow Islander free agent signing Anthony Duclair could be a total game changer going into the 2024-25 season with Tsyplakov and
Duclair both slotting in perfectly to lines one and two of the Islanders offense.
