Another entry into our redemption week theme here at Oil On Whyte, we have Nail Yakupov who the Oilers drafted with the First Overall Pick in 2012 and is seen as one of the biggest NHL Draft busts of all-time. Unfortunately, he left to return to Russia at the age of 25 and never looked back, leaving behind a bad legacy that is deserving of redemption.
Entering the 2011-12 NHL season, the Edmonton Oilers were fresh off back-to-back seasons where they were basement dwellers and ended up selecting First Overall. The club had chosen the talented future top line winger, Taylor Hall as well as future number one center, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.
The Oilers also had a strong supporting cast up front with the likes of Sam Gagner, Jordan Eberle, Linus Omark, and Magnus Paajarvi. They had a team loaded with budding young talent and with other hot prospects such as Oscar Klefbom and Jeff Petry on the backend and a young netminder in Devan Dubnyk on the roster, things were looking up.
However, even in season preview pieces, there were signs and although they looked to be on an upward trajectory, there were a lot of question marks surrounding the roster. The team was by far the worst in the NHL and aside from moving a few deck chairs and hoping the young players drastically improve, there was not a lot of change around them to justify anything besides assuming a slight increase in the win column.
Of course, this is what happened, the team had a record of 25-45-12 for 62 points and finishing dead last in the NHL by six points in 2010-11. They made a slight improvement of 32-40-10 for 74 points and finishing second last in 2011-12. Lady luck was on their side though and the Oilers won the 2012 NHL Draft Lottery and the right to select First Overall for a record third time in NHL history.
Who did they choose? Russian winger, Nail Yakupov.
Fail for Nail
Nail Yakupov was arguably one of the most hyped Russian prospects in years and for good reason, he looked like a star and like he was going to be the next Kovalchuk, Bure, Mogilny, etc. He was an electrifying and fast player on the ice who oozed talent with the puck and while most prospects carry the "Russian Factor" tag, him coming over to North America early seemed to dispel most of those worries.
Yakupov played for the Sarnia Sting in the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) and the young winger took the league by storm, scoring 49 goals and 52 assists for 101 points in 65 games in his first OHL season. His high level play even extended to the international stage where he dominated at the World U-18s for Russia scoring 13 points (six goals, seven assists) in seven games. His dynamic play earned him OHL and CHL rookie of the year honors across all three Major Junior leagues in Canada.
The hype surrounding Yakupov prompted the tagline "Fail for Nail" amongst fans of teams hoping to draft the future star winger. In his draft year, he would live up to the hype, scoring 31 goals and 38 assists for 69 points in only 42 games due to an injury suffered at the World Juniors. The WJC was another tournament he was a standout in, amassing nine assists in seven games.
His play across multiple international tournaments, multiple seasons at the highest levels of junior hockey made him look like a star. That is why when the Oilers were up at the podium they called his name.
NHL career
Yakupov's first NHL season did not transpire the way anybody would hope as the league and it's player association were not coming to terms on a new collective bargaining agreement and the owners decided to lockout it's players for the third time in 20 years.
After the lockout ended, the league played a condensed 48-game schedule and Yakupov looked incredible, he was tied for the rookie lead in points with Jonathan Huberdeau for 31 (17 goals and 14 assists) in 48 games but somehow finished fifth in Calder Trophy voting. The Oilers did slightly better finishing 24th in standings league wide.
Over the next few seasons, Yakupov's production would stick around the same level, notching a career high of 33 points in 81 games in 2014-15. After a few seasons of lackluster production, Oilers general manager Peter Chiarelli, chose to trade Yakupov at his lowest value to the St. Louis Blues for a 2017 Third Round pick and ECHL forward Zach Pochiro.
There, he was used sparingly finding himself a healthy scratch most nights, playing a total of 40 games in a Blues sweater, scoring nine points. He then signed a one-year prove-it deal with the Colorado Avalanche in 2017-18 and would again be used sparingly, playing only 58 games and scoring nine goals and 16 points.
Since the conclusion of that year, Yakupov moved back home to Russia to play in the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) where he has proven himself as productive scoring winger at a variety of stops like SKA St. Petersburg, Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk, Amur Khabarovsk, Kunlun Red Star, and even winning a Gagarin Cup in 2021 with Avangard Omsk.
What went wrong?
Whenever a player busts, especially a First Overall pick, many people like to point fingers many times it calls into question the player and their work ethic. This was especially true in the case for Yakupov when former Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke, famously talked about his draft interview experience with Yakupov ahead of the 2012 NHL Draft. He called it the "worst I've ever had in my life."
This quote alone caused many to cling onto and use it as a way to indict the character of Yakupov, which may or may not be true but as outsiders, we will likely never know. What we can do is look at the facts of his career and read between the lines and in Yakupov's defense, he was not put into a good position.
The most obvious thing to point out is that the Oilers likely rushed Yakupov, putting him in the NHL right away even if it was not what was best for him. The team was also abysmal at the time and not a good environment, with a constant coaching carousel that saw the Oilers cycle through four coaches in Yakupov's five year tenure with the team.
In an interview from almost two years ago, Yakupov opened up on former NHLer John Scott's podcast, Droppin the Gloves. He specifically spoke about his experience with former Oilers head coach Dallas Eakins saying "...He was screaming at me, he was asking ‘Why you did do this, why are you not doing this’ but he wasn’t teaching.” and later said “I never learned how to play, he basically never teached me. That guy was just weird, I don’t know.”
As well, looking at Yakupov's usage it is clear that the Oilers were set on the trio of Hall, Nugent-Hopkins, and Eberle sticking together as Yakupov rarely ever made it onto that line. This artificially forced Yakupov to play a lesser role, typically with less skilled players and in many cases, inconsistent lines. He also was logging less time on the man advantage, playing the fourth most minutes on the power play (508 minutes) in his time as an Oiler, nearly 200 less minutes of ice time than the next closest player, Nugent-Hopkins (695 minutes).
Yes, players earn their ice time but given his scoring rate of 1.46 points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 (evolving-hockey.com) compares closely with Nugent-Hopkins at 1.56 points per 60 minutes, Yakupov is not as bad of a player as he seems. Taking those two numbers and averaging them over 1000 minutes, the difference is less than two whole points.
Comparing it to the entire league during that stretch, 222 forwards logged 2000 or more minutes of ice-time at 5-on-5 from 2012-13 to 2015-16. Sidney Crosby sits atop all NHL forwards with a 2.71 points/60 with the next closest player being Jamie Benn at 2.53. Yakupov's numbers do not particularly standout, putting him around 150th, with a similar production rate to Milan Michalek, Matt Read, and David Jones.
When stacked against his age group of under 23 year olds, out of 58 forwards, Yakupov is 46th. This puts him slightly above Boone Jenner, J.T. Miller, and Jason Zucker. All of whom have carved out solid NHL careers in different ways. Jenner is a solid two-way middle-six forward, Zucker for the most part has been a decent second line winger, with good scoring and Miller has become one of the league's most productive top line forwards.
This is not to say that Yakupov would have become like Zucker or Miller either, he may have never eclipsed the 40-point mark in his entire career had he kept on going but when the conversation around Yakupov is to treat him like he is the worst bust in NHL history, it is important to include some context. When he left North America, Yakupov was only 25 years old and there is no telling how his career would have panned out in the later years.
Yes, Yakupov did not live up to the hype as a first overall pick but things happen for a reason and despite some people wanting to play the 'what if' game, this cannot be changed. Maybe in another universe things work out differently, the Oilers are able to stabilize sooner and Yakupov is developed properly or he shows the proper dedication to the sport to overcome his challenges. We will never know but one thing is for certain, he was not a bad hockey player and not nearly as bad as you may remember.