Sudbury Wolves take Rangers prospect Artyom Gonchar in import draft
A defenceman noted for his ability to walk the blueline to create offence, Artyom Gonchar looks forward to taking the next steps in his hockey career with the Sudbury Wolves.
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Sudbury selected the smooth-skating, puck-moving Russian rearguard with its first-round pick, 29th overall, in the Canadian Hockey League Import Draft on Wednesday, just four days after the nephew of former big-league standout Sergei Gonchar heard his name called by the New York Rangers in the third round of the 2025 NHL Entry Draft.
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'I'm very happy to be drafted by Sudbury and will do whatever team needs me to do,' said Artyom Gonchar, with his uncle serving as translator.
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An 18-year-old native of Chelyabinsk who played for the Stalnye Lisy Magnitogorsk in the Russian junior league this past season, Gonchar had seven goals and 18 assists in 50 regular-season games.
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'I'm a team player,' said the left-shooting 6-foot-1, 157-pounder, when asked to describe himself as a player. 'My strength is offence and first pass.'
He'll find no argument there from Rob Papineau, the Wolves' vice-president of hockey operations and general manager, who is anxious to add the Rangers prospect to his stable of blueliners for 2025-26.
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Papineau hopes Gonchar will help to fill the void created when Henry Mews announced he would jump to the NCAA ranks at the University of Michigan this coming season.
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'This was just too good of an opportunity,' Papineau told The Sudbury Star. 'He has the same agency that worked with Dalibor Dvorsky and we had been talking to them for a couple of months now about the opportunity to bring him over. Obviously, he's a really good player who was selected pretty high in the NHL draft this past weekend by the Rangers and he's looking forward to coming over. We had a good conversation after the draft and he's got a good bloodline, as well, with his uncle.
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'We're really excited to be able to add him to the team.'
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Indeed, the Wolves may have already passed the biggest potential hurdle to securing a commitment from the up-and-comer, having waited on the edges of their seats for a half hour or so while 28 other CHL teams made their own selections on Wednesday.
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'This draft is really hard for all the teams,' Papineau said. 'You have to build those relationships and it's a lot for players and families to get comfortable with an organization, knowing which one they would feel good coming to and moving a long way from home. Then there are those situations where players go in front of you and you're sort of stuck. Even though it is a draft, there's way more conversations and teams trying to line up players than in any other part of the game.'
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3 hours ago
- Toronto Sun
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3 hours ago
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