The sky is the limit: How the Devils Yegor Sharangovich became a breakout young star

It was a brief sequence in an otherwise mostly disappointing world championship, but the tools that made Yegor Sharangovich one of the stories of the 2021 Devils’ season were all on display.

Sharangovich, who turned 23 last week, pounced on a wayward pass near the offensive blue line and found himself all alone with the goalie late in a loss to Slovakia last month. He took a couple of strides to the middle of the circles, picked out an opening and didn’t miss.

He had shown the defensive instincts to be a dependable AHL player for nearly two full seasons after the Devils selected him at No. 141 in the 2018 draft. But it’s the other two parts of this play — his improved skating ability and wrist shot — that Sharangovich has unlocked and helped him soar from middle-six AHL center in early 2020 to scoring the fourth-most goals by an NHL rookie in 2021.

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Sharangovich also quickly became a fan favorite in New Jersey from both his play on the ice and the wholesome nature of the few interviews he did with the media this season.

“He’s like Clark Kent,” said Craig Woodcroft, who coached Sharangovich with Dinamo Minsk in the KHL this past season and was recently named coach of the Belarus national team. “He’s got these glasses and a nice suit on and he looks plain and ordinary, but then he’s got an ability and confidence and an inner drive that lets him go on the ice and do some special things. 

“I look at Yegor as a very unassuming guy. He’s confident and driven inside and yet, on the exterior, he’s very humble and a little shy. He can be uncomfortable opening himself up to people, and I don’t mean that in a bad way.” 

Sharangovich’s rookie season was an unequivocal success for the Devils, and he’s now considered a key young player for a franchise trying to climb its way out of a long rebuilding process. While the organization has a deep collection of interesting prospects, having a player defy nearly everyone’s expectations and reset his career arc as a potential impact NHL player is one of the types of unexpected surplus value Stanley Cup-winning teams have routinely benefitted from in the salary cap era.

The story of Sharangovich’s career, however, is likely to run on two parallel tracks with different levels of pressure here and at home in Belarus.

Woodcroft knew Sharangovich was going to make the team.

Well, let’s just say he was very confident. The Devils had several openings up front at the start of training camp, and Sharangovich had made himself the most intriguing man in camp after a star turn in the KHL.

Not only did Sharangovich earn a spot, but he also began the season on the top line next to Jack Hughes (remember when that was a surprise?) and introduced himself to New Jersey with an overtime goal in Lindy Ruff’s first win with the club.

His first NHL goal looks a little like that one from the worlds, doesn’t it? It was the full package of skills — defensive aptitude, powerful skating (complete with a “get off me” shrug when Matt Grzelcyk realized he was cooked and tried to cheat) and a goal where it was him and the goaltender and he won.

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“Coach Woodcroft really trusted me,” Sharangovich said. “I played a lot of minutes and played a really good role in the team. It was really good for me. I was just really ready for NHL camp when we came back.

“He was really happy when I made the team. I called the Dinamo coaches to say thank you for the half season and thank you for helping me.”

At Sharngovich’s size (he’s listed at 6 feet, 2 inches and 196 pounds), his improved skating ability is a huge factor. He’s big enough to compete with NHL veterans in the hard areas of the ice, but adding the ability to separate in open ice and the agility to navigate tight spaces opens up so many more opportunities to play with the puck instead of chasing it. 

And that is where the most exciting tool is Sharangovich’s arsenal — his lethal wrist shot — comes into play.

“So many coaches told me that my shot is good, to trust my shot,” Sharangovich said. “I remember Mark Dennehy in the AHL would tell me all the time, ‘Shoot the puck, shoot the puck.’ I worked on it in practice and then when I would shoot more in the games, I had more scoring chances and more goals.”

Two assistant coaches in particular — Sergei Brylin in the AHL, Mikhail Grabovski in the KHL — have put in the hours of work with Sharangovich before and after practices to fine-tune his shooting ability. It looks a little different than a typical wrist shot — I’ve used words like “whip” and “sling” to describe the motion. Dennehy said it reminds him of a lacrosse shot.

It looks different this season than how he used to shoot, and that was by design. 

“Well, that was something that we had identified,” Woodcroft said. “It was myself and Mikhail Grabovski because Grabber did a lot of the physical work with Yegor, so I don’t want to step on his toes. One of the things that we had seen was, yeah, he would take too long to get his shot off. It was such a dramatic wind-up and a ‘here it comes’ type of process. We felt that if we could tighten it up and change the angle of the puck when it’s delivered, so kind of kill two birds in one stone, that he could catch a lot of people off guard. And he did have a powerful shot to begin with. So those two things, we worked on a lot over the last summer.”

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Grabovski has become a key figure in Sharangovich’s life. He’s the most productive Belarusian player in NHL history. He was also a fifth-round pick. One difference between the two — Grabovski did not have Sharangovich’s physical tools, but he earned a reputation as an extremely hard worker who squeezed every bit of talent out of his body that he could.

“I’ve known Mikhail a long time,” Sharangovich said. “When I came to America before my first season in the AHL, I started working with him. He’s always looking at my games and we talk about my games. He’s a great guy and a great coach. He’s always helping me.”

Armed with an improved shot, Sharangovich made his mark with the Devils this season. He scored 16 goals in 54 games, a 27-goal pace for a full season. After a brief lull early in the season, he found a new home next to Travis Zajac and Janne Kuokkanen. Then he and Kuokkanen were promoted to play with Hughes on the top line again, and that became one of the most productive trios of the season for the club.

“(His shot) used to be a little longer and he didn’t really look for it,” Dennehy said. “He works his tail off. He improved his skating, so it’s not just his shot. He possesses the puck really well. I’m just really happy for him.”

There were not many “lucky” goals on Sharangovich’s ledger this season. He had one tip-in from pretty far out against the Rangers. He had one where the Flyers mangled a situation behind their own net and it led to an easy one for him. He had a couple that were probably leaky goals for the netminder.

But he also just started beating goalies cleanly with his shot and didn’t really stop.

This looks like a vintage Alex Ovechkin goal — in his younger days, he’d carry the puck into the offensive zone and use the defenseman as a screen all the time. It was really his signature move before one-timers from the left circle became that.

That’s a pretty one.

Here’s another total package goal. It also highlights a third part of Sharangovich’s development — the mental side of becoming a goal scorer.

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That doesn’t get talked about a lot with most NHL players. For most of them, they were a go-to scorer on every team they ever played on, so it was learning the defensive side of the game or other intricacies. Sharangovich established his defensive credentials first with Binghamton, and he’s still learning the art of being a goal scorer.

“The other thing in building a goal scorer is you also have to get them thinking that they are a goal scorer. It’s a mentality,” Woodcroft said. “And so being in the situation we were in Minsk, we knew we needed production from him. We knew if our team was to have a chance to be successful, he had to be a main driver of that. So it was really important for us to kind of turn his thoughts to, yes, he can do this. Yes, he has the potential to score goals and to be an offensive contributor. So I think that whole process of mentally engaging him, and then arming him with the tools, and then really encouraging and building up that confidence, that whole process worked together and got Yegor to the place where he is today.

 “I give a lot of credit to Lindy for sticking with him and continuing to believe him and work and grow through the whole process.”

That’s another one where Sharangovich made a strong play to help the Devils keep the puck, then found the soft spot in the defense. That area between the circles in the high slot became a go-to scoring area for him. 

Nice play by Zajac, and Sharangovich went to the right place. But, whew, can’t imagine that sequence of events went over very well during the next Philadelphia film session.

That one looks pretty familiar.

There was a lucky bounce off an official involved here, but this was also a really good example of how Hughes, Kuokkanen and Sharangovich worked so well together. Freeze this clip at five or six seconds in and you see the Sabres have the puck with time and space and numbers to easily get it out of danger, right?

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Well, Hughes and Kuokkanen pressured the puck carrier at just the right angles and forced him to try and drop it back to his defense partner. So they certainly played a role in creating their own luck.

For Devils fans, that is … the stuff right there, as the kids might say. They might use a slightly different word.

Apologies for the choppy middle part of that video, but that is a Blake Coleman goal. Scored by a guy who has some similarities in Coleman’s story/career arc to this point.

It would be pretty hard to draw up a prettier off-the-rush power-play goal than that one.

There’s another one that may have caused a bad word or three in the Flyers’ coaches’ room after the game. At one point here, Sharangovich is in on the forecheck 1-on-4 with Miles Wood drifting towards the bench for a change. But Sharangovich and Hughes still turn it into a goal.

Sharangovich’s last goal of the season was a lot like the first — came off the rush on a pass from Damon Severson and he beat the goalie cleanly with a wrist shot.

There are a couple of reasons why Sharangovich could struggle to match his 27-goal pace next season. His shooting percentage was a little high, but we also might just be at the start of a career where he proves able to do that consistently because of his quick and heavy shot. Maybe he doesn’t get to play with Hughes as much next year, so there aren’t many great chances.

But there are reasons for optimism, as well. He’s still learning how to do this. And there could be more power-play time in his future. And more “greasy” goals, to help offset any shooting slumps that might occur.

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“What was he on pace for? Like (27) goals?” Woodcroft said. “That was just Year One. If he can remain hungry and focused and keeps up as a student of the art of scoring like he’s become, I think that’s going to make him be able to get to 27 goals next year and with a little bit of luck maybe into the 30s. And that’s a hell of an addition for the Devils for a guy that a year ago wasn’t really on the radar screen.”

When Sharangovich scored his first NHL goal, his wife, Darya Sharangovicha, was still at home in Belarus.

It probably isn’t entirely a coincidence that Yegor’s first mini-lull where he had a few games without making much of an impact and lost some ice time ended right about the time Darya arrived in Newark. She didn’t join him in Binghamton the past two seasons, but their chronicles of the season away from the ice in northern New Jersey and Manhattan on social media certainly added to the wholesome, unassuming vibe that Sharangovich exudes.

“It’s been really nice when my wife is here with me,” said Sharangovich, who also noted they were going on their honeymoon to the Maldives after the season (they arrived this past weekend). “She helps a lot when I have bad games. She is also cooking for me. We don’t eat at a lot of restaurants because she is so good at cooking.

“This season when it started, we couldn’t go outside a lot. But since the middle of the season, we have more free time. I have gone with my wife to the parks, a lot of shopping, a couple of times to New York and to Jersey City. A lot of walking outside. Sometimes I will play computer games, but my wife will mess with me when I start playing.” 

Life back at home is not always the same for European players, and it’s especially true for Sharangovich and other Belarusian players. When the 2020-21 KHL season began, Belarus was a country in turmoil. Thousands of citizens packed the streets in Minsk and around the country to protest Alexander Lukashenko, who has been the president of Belarus since 1994, but as the Washington Post recently put it, “his nearly three-decade rule has been marked by electoral irregularities, human rights abuses and moves to consolidate power.”

Dinamo had to alter its practice schedule if there was going to be a protest, or if one had popped up near the arena. At one point during training camp, the club moved its players to a hotel about 30 miles outside the city — partly for coronavirus concerns, but also to give the team an added layer of safety and security.

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Belarus and Lukashenko were back in the global news cycle last month when a commercial airplane was forced to land so an opposition journalist who was onboard could be arrested. Other European leaders called it a state-sponsored hijacking and a terrorist act.

This matters for Sharangovich not just because Belarus is his home. He is also now the face of Belarusian hockey, in a proud country where people love the sport. He was the captain of the national team at the world championships at 22.

Lukashenko has close ties to the hockey program, much in the same way that Vladimir Putin does in Russia. And much like many of the prominent Russian stars in the NHL have before him, Sharangovich is going to spend his career with an added burden of how he deals with the situation as a public figure.

Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin and other Russian stars have dealt with some criticism of their relationship with Putin, but honestly not as much in this country as say, Tony DeAngelo, has for his allegiance to the previous president. Artemi Panarin has been outspoken against Putin and took a leave of absence from the Rangers this past season after a sexual assault accusation made against him that he both denied and felt was tied directly to his opposition of the Russian leader.

How Sharangovich navigates the situation is going to be a different kind of pressure than anything he’ll encounter with the Devils. And while it might pale in comparison, there is also going to pressure on him to help the country’s hockey team improve as well.

The Devils are trying to rebuild, and Belarus is in a similar situation on the international level.

“He’s the future of Belarus hockey now,” Woodcroft said. “He’s young. He has skill. He’s a clean-cut kid. He’s a good face of the hockey team moving forward. And he’s hungry. It’s a big burden for him because they have struggled for a while now. They want to be a top-10 hockey team in the world. Yegor wants to be the guy who leads them there.”

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Belarus upset Sweden and lost to the Czech Republic early in the world championships but also finished in last place in its group, and the previous head coach was quickly dismissed.  

Sharangovich also dealt with his first minor international incident at the tournament. That goal he scored against Slovakia? Well, he skated by their bench and greeted them with a one-finger gesture that is easy to translate in any language.

He also quickly apologized for it after the game, and it did not become more than a brief story.

“I just think his emotions got the better of them there,” Woodcroft said. “And I think he was just expressing his emotions. He didn’t score on the penalty shot before that. It was at a crucial time. So I think he was probably just frustrated, and he’s probably getting chirped as he went by their bench, and he just let emotions get the better of him. 

“But then that’s Yegor the competitor. Yegor the person, as soon as he got back into the dressing room he realized that probably wasn’t the best thing for him to do, particularly being the captain of the team. So he apologized. So I think it just showed him as a human and the whole process. His emotions got the better of him as a competitor. Then he took his helmet off, and he got back into Yegor the person mode and said, ‘That’s not really who I am.’ And he made it right. It’s probably a good learning experience for him as a player and as a person.”

Next up for Sharangovich is going to be a new contract, because he’s a restricted free agent. Then it will be his sophomore season in the NHL, and he will be one of several rookies who want to prove they are more than a one-hit wonder next season.

Given the foundation of his game as a smart, two-way minded player, the added offensive prowess and a burgeoning reputation as a hard worker, betting on Sharangovich might be a sound investment.

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“He has to keep putting the work in on the trade of scoring goals,” Woodcroft said. “And I think the trust New Jersey’s coaching staff put into him really helped. You can look at the ways he scored goals, but I also saw some of the chances he didn’t score on, like blows by a defenseman, cuts to the inside, not afraid to go to the hard areas.

“If he keeps on that page, the sky’s the limit for him.”

(Photo by Len Redkoles / NHLI via Getty Images)

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