Maxim Trunev

A seeming afterthought fifth round pick that Calgary sent to Montreal in the Alex Tanguay trade could turn out to be much more than that if Trunev is what he appears to be at first glance. Despite the fact that he is one of the youngest players taken in the draft (turns 18 on September 7), he put up similar scoring totals to Nikita Filatov (#6 overall pick) in the Russian 3 league last season. Trunev is about the same size, (listed at 5-11, 175), and didn't have the advantage of playing with the two highly regarded linemates Filatov lined up with at CSKA, Kugryshev and Kulemin. Moreover, Trunev actually has spent more time in North America up to this point, despite the fact that he was not on the Russian select team that came to the ADT junior challenge in B.C. last year, even though he was named to the preliminary rostor. Maxim has twice travelled to Calgary with the Severstal Cherepovits midget team for the Mac's Tuornament, and twice attended the Okanagan Hockey School run out of Penticton, B.C. by several former NHLers. One of the coaches there, Richard Kromm, is coach of the Portland Winterhawks of the WHL, and he was confident enough that Trunev would come to North America and make a difference to his team that he selected him with the third overall pick in the CHL import draft. Certainly there would be no better place for Trunev to get his feet wet in terms of the North American game than the tough checking, defense oriented WHL.