Nikita Grebenkin pulled a mess of long, curly hair away from his face to reveal a toothless grin. It leaves little doubt about who he is and where he’s at right now: Brimming with the utmost confidence.
Two weeks before he was called up to the NHL for the first time on Wednesday, Grebenkin was a Toronto Marlie. He was asked how he could improve his hard-charging and fearless game. He whipped out his phone to feed the question into a translation app.
“I am a professional,” he said, pointing at his phone.
Grebenkin’s English skills are a work in progress. Five months ago, the Leafs got him a tutor. His effort is admirable. Every sentence he creates carries weight.
The winger didn’t take long to review the question. Grebenkin typed his answer in Russian without hesitation. When you are around Grebenkin, you better get ready to hear the brutal truth, as he sees it. He practically shoved his phone in my face with his answer translated into English.
“I am ready for the NHL.”
There it was again, that same toothless grin.
The Grebenkin experience is underway in full for the Toronto Maple Leafs. It’s the smallest of sample sizes, but Grebenkin certainly looked ready to be an NHL player in his debut.
The 2022 fifth-round draft pick is a throwback player: Full of swagger, unafraid to speak his mind and ready to be daring on and off the ice.
With injuries ravaging the Leafs, they turned to Grebekin ahead of schedule. But you wouldn’t know it, based on how he played on Wednesday: He landed four hits, second only to Simon Benoit. In just 10:04 of five-on-five ice time, the Leafs easily won those minutes with a 78 percent expected goals share. Grebenkin never stopped moving and creating chances shift to shift. He added 1:01 TOI on the power play.
Crucially, the Leafs beat the Vegas Golden Knights 3-0.
“If we don’t win, I won’t enjoy it,” Grebenkin said before his debut. “If we win, I’ll enjoy it.”
Part of the reason for the hype surrounding Grebenkin is the Leafs don’t have another prospect like him in their system: Built like a truck and able to run over opposition defenders while maintaining control of the puck. Blessed with a heavy and accurate shot and driven by a thick 6-foot-2, 210-pound frame. Ceaselessly daring with the puck in the offensive zone, taking the kind of chances that might excite and frustrate onlookers all the same. Unafraid to drop the mitts in his first preseason game and hype up a crowd seconds afterward.
Nikita Grebyonkin gets into a tilt with Adam Gaudette and then tries to get the crowd fired up.
Love it pic.twitter.com/bAOD0Uwqyo— Rink Rat Report (@RinkRatReport) September 23, 2024
The kind of player who, through 13 AHL games and now one NHL game, is impossible to take your eyes off. You never quite know what’s going to happen, but you know you’re going to be entertained.
This season’s Marlies are stacked with an array of young, talented skaters and Leafs draft picks they haven’t had in seasons past, including Roni Hirvonen, Topi Niemela and Ryan Tverberg.
But none offer the high-end, sometimes dazzling upside Grebenkin has.
“A lot of tools,” Marlies head coach John Gruden said of Grebenkin, before raising his eyes knowingly. “He’s not afraid to get engaged.”
After winning a KHL championship with Metallurg Magnitogorsk last season, Grebenkin signed his entry-level contract with the Leafs. It’s worth remembering Grebenkin is in his first North American professional season.
So far, the production is there: Grebenkin’s 0.77 points per game is 10th among regular AHL rookies.
Yes, his numbers are juiced by some exemplary work on the man advantage: Three of his four goals have come on the power play. And Grebenkin is shooting at an outlandish 22 percent. All but one AHL rookie who has found the back of the net as much as Grebenkin has logged more shots. Some midseason regression feels likely.
But that regression is not what the Leafs are concerned about right now. They need warm bodies. And Grebenkin is coming in hot.
That much was evident in his NHL debut. His willingness to be physical, skate heavily to force turnovers and be aggressive in the offensive zone is tailor-made for the kind of hockey coach Craig Berube and general manager Brad Treliving want to play.
“(Grebenkin did) all the things I thought he was going to do,” Berube said.
Grebenkin gets back to deflect the pass pic.twitter.com/9S0aGhROsy
— Omar (@TicTacTOmar) November 21, 2024
Grebenkin is never short on energy. But harnessing that energy and using his skill set to be effective within a team structure? That could be the difference between a player bouncing up and down between the AHL and the NHL and one sticking in the latter.
Once the Leafs roster features more healthy forwards than those battling injuries, Grebenkin could return to the AHL for more seasoning.
“(Grebenkin) has just got to continue to understand things don’t happen overnight. You need to continue to work on those habits and keep being a better version of yourself every day. It seems like he wants it, which is great. He’s always asking things,” Gruden said.
Before his call-up, the Marlies identified the need for Grebenkin to become more consistent in his game, to smooth out how much he stops and starts on the ice and become better with transitional plays when going from defence to offence.
“Sometimes players will drift a little bit out of position,” Gruden said. “He’s working on it.”
What Grebenkin can do in his first North American professional season will go a long way to dictate what kind of NHL potential he has in the short term. Compared to the other crop of Leafs prospects in the AHL, Grebenkin might possess the most potential but also the most room for improvement.
“My team in Russia didn’t like to play in the (defensive zone). And I didn’t either. But I understand that in the NHL, you have to like it,” Grebenkin said. “I’ve stayed in Canada for five months and I’m understanding hockey in Canada.”
When Grebenkin spoke to The Athletic, he was fresh off a day off. He drove 45 minutes away from his Liberty Village condo to spend his entire day soaking up a taste of home: a Russian bath, complete with a sauna, cold tub plunges and a type of Venik massage — during which a bundle of leafy branches are used to remove dead skin — that the BBC called “not for the faint-hearted.”
Does the massage hurt?
“Oh yeah,” he said, before breaking out into laughter.
Nikita Grebenkin is already learning so much in the NHL 😂 pic.twitter.com/Qr4I0mmgSp
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) November 21, 2024
Asked what he likes about living in Toronto, Grebenkin answered quickly.
“My house,” he said before his same piercing laugh echoed off the Ford Performance Centre walls. “I’ve never stayed in a big city. My city in Russia is very small.”
Grebenkin lives alone, so when he can socialize, he will. He’s fond of paintball. Whether it was with former Marlie goalie Vyacheslav Peksa or Russian friends visiting earlier this season, he never turns down a chance to play with large groups.
“It’s a hard game. It’s painful,” he said, grinning.
Slowly, he is getting more comfortable leaving his home.
“Every week, I go to The Keg,” he said. “Big steak and escargot. A long time ago, I never had escargot. But now, I like it.”
The night before his NHL debut, he went out for dinner with former Leaf and current Golden Knights goalie Ilya Samsonov. They both came up in the Metallurg system in Russia.
“(Grebenkin) is ready, and he is excited,” Samsonov said.
That excitement could last longer than anticipated.
Matthew Knies left the game after taking a high hit from the Golden Knights’ Zach Whitecloud and did not return. It’s possible he is added to the list of forwards who will miss time. That could mean Grebenkin’s experience in the NHL continues a little longer.
“I am working every day,” he said with sincerity weeks before his debut. “On my days off, I am working. I am waiting for my chance in the NHL.”
Grebenkin doesn’t have to wait any longer. And if his full-throttle on and off-ice persona is any indication, he’s going to do a lot with that chance.
(Photo: John E. Sokolowski / Imagn Images)
