Stanislav Galiev poses with his mom for this feature story in indy.com

On day two of the 2010 NHL Entry Draft in Los Angeles, Capitals’ General Manager George McPhee surprised no one by drafting another Russian-born player. Pick #86 was Stanislav Galiev of the QMJHL’s Saint John Sea Dogs.

We don’t know all that much about Galiev. Despite hailing from Moscow, there’s not a lot of knowledge about him in Russia, probably because he chose to play Junior Hockey in Canada instead of the KHL. But here’s what we did find:

He’s close friends with 1st-round pick Evgeny Kuznetsov, and he’s called Stas (Russian short form from Stanislav) or Stan.  Those of us working hard on coining a nickname for the guy should start from there.

Most experts projected Galiev to be drafted higher; some thought he’d be a first-rounder. Finding this unclaimed gem at #86 overall may turn out to be another master stroke by GMGM.  It’s the wink.

We’ve performed some investigative journlism (i.e. – surfing YouTube) to further our research.  Our conclusion? Galiev is one of those score-by-any-means-necessary guys.

From the rebound:

After tic-tac-toe play:

From the sharp angle:

Deflecting shots from the blue line:

From the paint scrum (3:45). Also, he even fights a little at 2:20 mark (continued on 2:32):

Ripping off the D-men:

And sometimes he doesn’t score at all (0:45) but makes amazing passes (3:08, 3:23), delaying the thrilling GTG until later (5:40):

Check out those goal celebrations.  Might we see this at the Verizon Center someday?

After all this dangerously deep YouTubing, I can say one thing for sure:  you can always find Galiev near the net when the team strikes.

He’s like Ovechkin, but not as fast and less physical.  He’s like Semin, but not quite so… European. He’s like Knuble, but not so defensive.

I think that makes him Eric Fehr!