What kind of player do the Leafs have in 25-year-old rookie Igor Ozhiganov? It’s tough to say. There isn’t a ton of video publicly available to break down his game over the past few seasons (aside from YouTube highlights of his slapshot), we don’t have much statistical evidence on him, and as Mike Babcock bluntly pointed out, he doesn’t speak any English. How do you evaluate a player like that?



Let’s try our best to use the information that we do have.



I suggest going through Alessandro Seren Rosso’s piece breaking down Ozhiganov’s time in Russia. Reading the tea leaves, it sounds like there was a rift last year between the young defender and CSKA Moscow’s new head coach, Igor Nikitin. There’s been speculation that Nikitin moved Ozhiganov down the depth chart because of his plans to leave the KHL for Toronto, while others believe it was a stylistic shift.



Either way you slice it,...