2025 T25U25: Artur Akhtyamov is #16

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After being a dominant goalie in the VHL for two years and getting a good run in the KHL the previous season, Akhtyamov came to North America on a high note. After an extremely up and down season, he'll be looked at to take a step up in his second year.

Artur Akhtyamov	Vitals
Age as of July 1	23.67
Position	G
Height	6'2"
Weight (lbs)	170
Shoots	L
Draft Year	2020
Draft Number	106

The Player

After winning the VHL championship and being named the playoff MVP, Akhtyamov had some hype coming into this season. In fact, last year he wound up being ranked 12th on this list.

Akhtyamov's season started off pretty strong – in his first seven games, he was 6-0-1 with a .935 sv% and two shutouts. The rest of his season didn't go as well, despite one other mini-stretch of four games with a .933 sv% or better, including his third shutout of the season. But at the end of the season, with his good and bad games combined, he had a .901 sv% in 26 games. It was third best on a team that ran Matt Murray and Dennis Hildeby pretty equally with him.

This season, Murray has moved on to Seattle. Hildeby is still not signed, with the Marlies or anywhere else, but the assumption is he's returning. The two of them will again compete for time with their new veteran signing for the Marlies, Ken Appleby. In theory, the two prospects will make some improvements and earn more starts.

But it's worth asking what the expectations are? Akhtyamov is currently 23, turning 24 in October. He was born the same year as Hildeby, who turned 24 on August 19th. So they are basically the same age when considering their development. Hildeby already has two seasons in the AHL, with more games, a taste of the NHL, and he's done better statistically.

Let's use Woll as a measuring stick. Before Woll's age 24 season, he was in the same just kind of okay range for performance as Hildeby and Akhtyamov. When he was 23, he had a .907 sv% in just 15 games playing as the third goalie behind Erik Källgren and Michael Hutchinson. The year before that, he played in 15 games again and had an .892 sv%. But in Woll's age 24 season, he finally had his breakout. He had a .927 sv% in 21 games for the Marlies, then a .932 sv% for the Leafs in 7 games, then played in 4 playoff games in the NHL with a .915 sv%.

That's the measuring stick. Woll as a goalie in the NHL is okay, not likely to steal more games than he'll lose, and the rest he is adequate. If he had his breakout at 24, then this year I'll be looking at Akhtyamov to take a bigger step forward this year now that he's had time to adjust to AHL competition. Unlike Hildeby and even Woll, he doesn't have the same physical advantages of size.

The Votes

Not surprisingly, voters cooled on Akhtyamov after his meh AHL debut. We're a fickle lot when it comes to goalies though – another meh or bad season, and he'll likely drop off the list completely next summer. But if he does have the big breakout, then expect to see him rocket back into the top 10.

Voter	Vote
Cathy	20
Brigstew	21
Species	21
Hardev	19
shinson93	20
Cameron	13
Zone Entry	13
Svalbard38	15
dhammm	7
adam	18
Weighted Average	16.7
Highest Vote	7
Lowest Vote	21

Personally, I voted him 21st, and I was definitely one of those fickle voters compared to how (relatively) high I was on him the year before. He did get ranked in the top 25 by every single voter, and dhamm even doubled down and ranked him in the top 10! Hopefully he's right.

The Opinions

Here's what the rest of the voters had to say:

Shinson93 This one was a bit hard. AA had some really strong stretches, but also had struggles. A lot of times it was hard for me to separate his play from the team in front of him. When they were good, so was he. And when they were bad, he couldn’t really bail them out. I love the way he claps to the fans when he has a good game. I’m hoping another year brings more confidence and maybe a few more game stealing performances.

Cameron: This season with the Marlies was weird, he looked just okay at times and incredible at others. However, goalies are known to take a long time to develop and I think he can translate into the NHL as long as his development keeps trending in the same direction.

dhammm: Seems like a credible goalie prospect to me, and considering how few credible prospects the Leafs have, I have no choice but to rank him higher than I’d like. He seems to have a handle on 4th in the goaltending depth chart, meaning that he might see NHL ice this season, depending on injuries, like Hildeby did this past season, like Woll did before them in 2022-23. Whether Akhtyamov’s a future backup, platoon goalie, or bonafide starter is otherwise anyone’s guess.

Svalbard38: I still have a lot of time for Akhtyamov. He’s only 23 and his first season in North America had some high points and some low points. Goalies tend to take longer to develop, so if he can take this upcoming season to gain some confidence and to iron out some of the wrinkles in his game, I’ll still consider him on track in his development.

Hardev: The Marlies had excellent goaltending behind them last season, with the trio of Hildeby, Akhtyamov, and Murray combining for the 6th best team save percentage and the second-most shutouts. And while Murray led the way in save percentage, Artur wasn’t far behind Hildeby. Hopefully with a bigger workload and a season under his belt he can step up his game. He’s 24 next season so the clock is ticking to show what he can do. The first indication of the Leafs confidence in him and Hildeby to carry the load would be Treliving not needing to get a third goalie early in the season to either stay on the Leafs roster or be sent down to the Marlies in the same role as Murray.

Cathy: In retrospect, I wish I'd voted differently, but I feel that way about a lot of the lower half of the 38 eligible players in isolation. My approach with goalies is to ignore draft location entirely, unlike with skaters, and to assume in advance that they are extremely, and I want to emphasize this extremely unlikely to ever have meaningful NHL value. They're not even very likely to ever be Joe Woll.

The second thing is this: Akhtyamov is too small. Yes, yes, that one time this small goalie did the thing, and yet, no that's not relevant because this goalie here in front of us cannot get with skill the pucks that won't just bounce off his shoulders. He's not shown the positional skill to get those freebie bounces (which aren't really free) even if he was Hildeby-sized. I don't think I should have ranked him at all but there aren't quite enough newly drafted players to put ahead of him.

So what do you all think? Are you still riding the King Artur train, and expecting him to take that big leap forward like Woll did? Or have you cooled on him, given his age and performance relative to Hildeby?

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