Expect Russian players to drop at the NHL draft.
How far they'll fall is the question.
That was the message from NHL general managers and scouts on Thursday, a day after a mammoth doping scandal wiped out Russia's entire under-18 team only a week before the world championship.
While the Russian hockey federation continued to deny that it replaced the under-18 team with its under-17s because of a drug-related issue, the controversial blood-flow-boosting drug meldonium is widely reported to be the cause.
It has led to hundreds of positive tests among high-profile Russian athletes – including tennis star Maria Sharapova – in recent months and made international news repeatedly since it was added to the World Anti-Doping Agency's banned list in January.
The under-18 world hockey championship, which begins next Thursday in Grand Forks, N.D., is typically the most important tournament of the year for NHL scouting staffs. It's the best opportunity to see the top of that year's draft-eligible players compete against one another, and it's played only two months before the draft.
With rising Russian stars such as projected top-20 pick German Rubtsov, Artur Kayumov, Dmitri Alexeyev and Mikhail Maltsev now not there, some GMs won't have had a chance to watch them at all this season.
"They're a hard group to see," St. Louis Blues GM Doug Armstrong said. "So the tournaments are big."
"It definitely hurts [their draft ranking] from my standpoint," Buffalo Sabres GM Tim Murray said. "I've only seen Rubstov once and others zero times. My scouts have seen them, but a late, positive viewing goes a long way. It's human nature."
That was the case last year. The Russian team finished out of the medals – as has become the norm at this event – but winger Denis Guryanov and goaltender Ilya Samsonov had strong tournaments and were picked in the first round of the 2015 NHL draft by Dallas and Washington.
This particular Russian under-18 team was also highly anticipated by scouts as this was the first year the Russians tried to emulate the U.S. National Team Development Program (USNTDP) by having them play together as one centralized elite club all season. In part because some of Canada's top junior players are still playing in the Canadian Hockey League playoffs, the United States has dominated the world under-18 event. The USNTDP has won eight of the past 11 gold medals and finished in the top three for 12 successive years.
Russia has only one bronze in the past six tournaments.
"They were tired of getting their ass kicked," said Bill Armstrong, the Blues director of amateur scouting. "That's why they built this team: to go and be more competitive at the U-18.
"They really accomplished two goals. They kept some players in Russia, and they're a more competitive team with their U-18 program."
What they also did, however, was open the door for a scandal like this to wipe out an entire team. Because the kids trained together the entire season, they were all on the same diet and supplement regiment, which is how it's believed they received the meldonium.
NHL executives expressed little concern that the players would be avoided because of the drug scandal, however, as it's widely believed this was a problem created by Russian hockey officials.
Without this newly created super squad, Russia will instead send a team mostly from its under-17 program, which wasn't similarly affected by meldonium because the players were scattered around the country on different junior teams. They also added four Russian players from the CHL and one from the North American Hockey League, a controversial last-minute change that had to be negotiated over the past 48 hours.
Russia had previously told players that if they went to play in North American leagues they wouldn't be selected for these high-profile tournaments.
"They really force you to play [for their programs]," Armstrong said.
Even with the reinforcements, it's a group that will struggle to compete with the best under-18 programs in the world. Russia now has a roster filled with 16-year-olds, several of whom are under 160 pounds. (Winger Yaroslav Alexeyev is listed at 5-foot-8 and 143 pounds.)
None of the NHL executives surveyed on Thursday believe they will stand much of a chance against stacked U.S. and Canadian teams. They've dropped the Russians on their priority lists in terms of who they'll be scouting. After all, they can see most of this group again next year.
"It's a very good tournament," Blue Jackets head amateur scout Ville Siren said. "It's a tough one for any team."
"It's really a disadvantage for those kids," Armstrong added. "That's a hard, hard tournament to jump up an age group and do it with all your other kids that are a year younger. It just doesn't give you a chance."
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