Hockey player “Torpedo” Silaev said that he was distracted by scouts from North America

Photo: © Denis Bushkovsky / Match TV

Torpedo defender Anton Silaev said that he tries not to pay attention to scouts from North America.

Silaev is 17 years old, in the current regular season of the Fonbet KHL Championship he played 31 matches and scored 9 points (2+7) with a utility indicator of “-5”.

— At what point did you even start thinking about the draft? That this is something real in your life?

– Yes, I always thought about it.

“There’s just an opinion that this is not the most important thing in a player’s career. Panarin was not drafted at all. Kaprizov – in the last rounds. Why is this important for young players?

– This is a difficult question. Don’t know. Probably the most valuable thing is that we are watched and our work is appreciated.

— Larionov recently said that half of America, I mean scouts, come to watch you and Artamonov. Do you feel the views of these people on you?

– In fact, this is a difficult topic for me now, all these scouts, drafts… It’s very difficult.

— Does all this distract you?

— It’s distracting, I try not to pay attention, to abstract myself. Maybe someone won’t admit it to you, but I’ll tell you straight: this is a big hindrance, because if you always think about it, it will be harmful. If you learn to abstract from this and play the same way you play, then it won’t interfere. There are many examples where players were thinking about the draft, then they were selected in the first round, and they just all disappeared from the radar. Lots of stories like this. So I try not to think about it and play my hockey.

“Some people think so much about the draft that they go to North America to play in junior leagues for it. Have you had such impulses?

– No. I talked to my agent, and we started working three years ago, and came to the decision that I play in Russia, in Torpedo, and will not leave anywhere. I have every opportunity to develop much better here than there. Why should I rush somewhere and leave? – Sport24 quotes Silaev as saying.

Watch Fonbet matches of the KHL Championship on the channels of the Match holding company, as well as on the websites matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru.