The Flyers believe they have a ‘unicorn’ in Maksim Sokolovskii: ‘He’s 6-foot-8, and he skates like he’s 5-foot-8′

During the Olympic break, Denver Barkey headed back to London, Ontario.

Roughly eight months prior, the forward had captained the Ontario Hockey League’s Knights to the Memorial Cup. Now, he wasn’t just a pro hockey player; he was as an NHL regular for the Flyers after being called up in December.

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So with some time off during the break, Barkey headed back to see his old club. It was there that the graciously listed 5-foot-10, 170-pound Barkey met the accurately measured 6-7, 238-pound Maksim Sokolovskii.

So, what’s the scouting report on the Flyers’ newest defensive prospect, Denver?

“I only watched two games, but obviously he’s a big boy [who] throws his body around,” replied Barkey, who had no idea in February that the two would one day be wearing orange and black together.

“I think he’s got a lot of raw skill. When I watched him, it seemed like he moved really well, moves the puck well for being [6-7] at that age. It’s pretty impressive, and I think he’s got a really high ceiling.”

And that’s the thing: Sokolovskii, whom Flyers assistant general manager Brent Flahr described as a “unicorn” this weekend, does have a high ceiling. In the same breath that many fans and draft prognosticators questioned the Flyers’ moving down to take the Nikita Zadorov-comparable, they’ve acknowledged his impressive skating for his size. He is considered a prospect who, while raw, will indeed play in the NHL one day.

“He’s 6-foot-8, and he skates like he’s 5-foot-8,” Mike Taylor, the Atlantic Hockey Academy’s owner and one of Sokolovskii’s coaches two seasons ago, told The Inquirer recently. “… He came here, and I had a skating coach once a month come up and do power skating with our guys, and he does it like with UMass Amherst, and all these other schools.

“And he saw him skate, and he’s like, ‘Oh my God.’ He couldn’t believe how good his edge work was, and stuff, for being the size that he is.”

During the first day of Flyers development camp on Monday, as Sokolovskii towered over the coaching staff and most of his fellow defensemen — 6-5 blueliners Carter Amico and Luke Vlooswyk were the exception — the long and lean defenseman looked anything but gangly on the ice.

Are there small tweaks that need to be made? Absolutely.

Director of player development Riley Armstrong said he and Flyers skating instructor Lindsay Tilley noticed he was turning his upper body too much during the skating-only drills, which made him a weaker skater. “When your hips and your shoulders don’t stay in a square, it throws you all off balance,” Armstrong noted.

However, Sokolovskii didn’t really do that during the drills with the puck, as he executed puck retrievals with some deception all while keeping his feet moving. It was evident to all in attendance, including the several fans who lined the rink, that there was a smoothness to his skating — even though he had been off the ice for about two weeks.

“I feel amazing,” he said when asked about wearing the Flyers logo for the first time.

And how did Day 1 go? “I think great. Good experience, first practice with the pro guys.”

Sokolovskii doesn’t turn 18 for another 12 days. He’s still shy and reserved, at least off the ice. But on the ice, it is a different story.

“He’s a big, strong shutdown defenseman with a really good stick and a physical side,” London assistant coach Rick Steadman told The Inquirer during a recent phone interview.

“He likes to play hard. He likes to step up and hit guys, and he’s just that big beast back there that’s going to really protect you defensively.”

It wasn’t always like that.

Two years ago, when the Kazakhstan-born, Russian-raised blueliner came to the United States to play at the Atlantic Coast Academy, Taylor recalls that the league was a little beneath Sokolovski because he was bigger and stronger than everyone else. And because of that, he’d get a lot of penalties.

Despite spending a lot of time in the penalty box, Sokolovskii still put up big numbers, racking up 34 goals and 84 points in 65 games. His issue was in his own end. “He was taking chances and doing things with us that he wouldn’t do at the next level, because the hockey allowed the level of play,” Taylor said.

When Sokolovskii went to London, things changed.

“I think when I started the year, I tried to play more offensive,” Sokolovskii mentioned Monday. “But they told me you need to play more [in the] defensive zone. … You can play in the NHL if you will play more defensive.”

And that was the focus.

“For us, we like our guys to be able to play D first, so we can trust them out there and get more ice time. So we really did push that a lot,” Steadman said. “And we were trying to get him to create offense from the defense, like he’d poke a puck away on a rush or a big hit turned into transition, trying to get him to do offense that way.

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“When he was playing a little younger, because he was so big and he got such a big reach, he could really just push guys out of the way … so we tried to teach him that pro-style game, use your teammates, stay at the blue line, get your shots through to create your offense, not stickhandle through everybody, and try to get as close as you can to the net.”

Sokolovskii worked his way up the lineup. He came in as a seventh or eighth defenseman and was rotating in and out at first. But he “dug in,” according to Steadman, and after Christmas, they opted to trade some players, knowing that he was ready to effectively step into the lineup. He started on the third pair, was scratched a few times, but eventually forced the Knights to keep him in the lineup.

It was his games against Brady Martin, the fifth overall pick in last year’s draft, in the playoffs that opened many evaluators’ eyes. Martin, a point-per-game player during the regular season, had five points in the series against London; however, his only goal with Sokolovskii on the ice came on a power play. He shut him down at five-on-five.

“That’s just saying that he got that defense system figured out. He was playing hard, big minutes. He was hitting, playing physical, without taking a penalty, which is pretty amazing for a kid that big, and just never backed down, kept going, and really a key guy that way coming in,” Steadman said of the blueliner.

“And it’s one of those things that translates really well to the NHL is that ability to defend and play against top guys. You always hope that offense will come, but you always need guys to keep that puck out of the net.”

It was Sokolovskii’s progression throughout the season that stood out to the Flyers and enticed f them to draft the blueliner. “It seemed every month he just kept getting better and better, and figuring out the game more and more,” Flyers general manager Danny Brière said on Friday.

According to Steadman, that progression was due to a multitude of factors, but none greater than the fact that he became more comfortable speaking English. It helped him be more confident on and off the ice.

“Things that we take for granted — just asking somebody for something, or like, where do I get this, where’s this in the dressing room, and then on the ice, just even yelling to your partner, ‘I’m open, I’m open,’ or ‘You’re OK, you’re OK,’ or ‘Someone’s coming, move the puck quickly.’ You just don’t have that. You’re just playing purely on and living on your natural ability to just try to figure it out as you go,” Steadman said.

“So that’s why I do think he has a good hockey brain to be able to figure it out when you can’t speak; it is pretty amazing. And then his English got better and better, and he understood and could talk to his teammates.

“From the start of the year, couldn’t have a conversation with him as a coach. You try and use Google Translate, [but the] conversations took forever. At the end of the year, you could sit down and just chat away with him, and then have a conversation about anything — his family, hockey, how he’s doing — and he really progressed that way.”

Now, the next step is building up his offense.

Part of the criticism around Sokolovskii being selected in the first round was his limited production. He only had two goals and eight points in 44 regular-season games and was pointless in five postseason games.

Sokolovskii told The Inquirer at the NHL scouting combine that he wants to keep working on his foot speed. The hope is that it will all translate to offensive improvement.

“A big guy with skates that big, it takes a while to get that quick twitch going, so he’ll keep working on that; that’ll just help with his game and breakouts better,” Steadman said. “And then we talked to him a lot about just getting his shot off quicker. It’s a long way from his head to his hands to the bottom of his stick, and it takes him a long time to get that puck off.

“But if you can get that off quicker with how hard his shot is … he will beat goalies and be able to score. So he’s just got to get it off as quick as possible, let it touch his stick, get it off, and hopefully, help him create offense that way,”

He does possess a big-time, hard shot that could become a weapon from the blue line. Sokolovskii is excited to work on building his offense — and he may get some time on the power play in London.

“I would probably guess in London next year you’ll probably see him [add offense], once he has the ability to start joining the rush more,” Armstrong said.

“And now they know that he can defend and he’s good at it — you see some of the bone-crushing hits and a couple of fights he was in — I think he’s going to have more space next year. I think guys are going to probably be a little bit more scared of him going into the season, so I think that’s going to open up the offensive side of his game as well. And I’d like to see him throw a couple in the back then as well, add to his toolbox.”

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