WORKING HIS WAY UP TO NHL
Nikita Scherbak stuck with his dream
The Canadiens’ Nikita Scherbak was 17 when he boarded a flight from Russia. He didn’t speak a word of English and knew very little about the new country that was his destination.
“I was afraid, I was kind of shy,” Scherbak recalled about what was going through his mind during that flight just over five years ago.
“I didn’t know what to do, or what to say. That was probably the biggest part. But I wasn’t scared. I knew it was going to be hard. I knew it was going to be a different country, and a different style of hockey. I was trying to get myself ready while I was flying to Canada.
“I had no idea what to expect, honestly,” Scherbak said after practice on Wednesday in Brossard. “I knew Canada is a nice country and people are nice and it’s a safe country to live in. But I didn’t know any more than that.”
When the plane landed in Saskatchewan, Scherbak was met at the airport by David Struch — head coach of the Saskatoon Blades, who selected the Russian forward in the second round of the 2013 CHL Import Draft — and a couple of his new junior teammates. They then dropped Scherbak off at the home where he would be billeting with another teammate, David Nemecek of the Czech Republic.
“It was probably hard to communicate with me, but that Czech kid helped me a lot,” Scherbak said of Nemecek, a defenceman who is playing for BK Mlada Boleslav in the Czech Extraliga. “He tried to teach me some words, so that kind of helped me. I just learned by talking to people. The more I talked, the more words I learned. I was talking, but my English was so broken. Now I speak pretty well and I understand how broken my English was back then, so it was probably very hard to communicate with me. But that Czech guy helped me a lot.”
During his first year in Saskatoon, Scherbak posted 28-50-78 totals to lead his team and all WHL rookies in scoring. The Canadiens then selected the 6-foot-2, 192-pound winger in the first round (26th overall) of the 2014 NHL Entry Draft.
“We’re not going to rush him,” Canadiens GM Marc Bergevin said after drafting Scherbak, adding that his scouts had him ranked higher than 26th. “We believe the road to Montreal goes through our farm team.”
There have been some bumps on that road since Scherbak joined the St. John’s IceCaps for the 2015-16 AHL season, posting 7-16-23 totals and a team-worst minus-26 rating in 48 games while missing time with an ankle injury.
“Nikita’s got lots of talent,” IceCaps coach Sylvain Lefebvre told me when I was in St. John’s for the end of that season. “He’s easy to coach, he wants to learn. He does a lot of homework ... he’ll watch a lot of video. Where we want him to be more professional is in his practice habits, workout habits. He’s improved a lot, but he needs to improve even more. Maybe it’s not natural in him to go hard every time.”
Scherbak insists he’s a much better pro and the Canadiens are giving him a good look after calling him up from the AHL’s Laval Rocket last Friday. The 22-yearold has two assists in two games since then and has been used on the second power play unit.
Scherbak will be back in the lineup on Thursday in Philadelphia (7 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN Radio 690), skating on a line with Jonathan Drouin and Alex Galchenyuk.
Scherbak said he’s matured both on and off the ice, having learned the importance of eating, sleeping and training well in order to be properly prepared for practices and games. He admits that wasn’t the case during his first season in the AHL.
Scherbak was only three years old when he started playing hockey, soccer and volleyball while growing up in Russia. But his dream was to play in the NHL, and that was also the dream of his parents, which is why he boarded that flight to Canada to play junior hockey.
“It was my dream to play in the NHL and I stuck with it,” he said. “My father always told me that the NHL is the league he wanted me to play in. That was always my goal.”
Scherbak says his faith has helped him along the way. His locker stall in Laval when he was with the Rocket contained a picture of Jesus Christ.
“I believe in God and I think it helps me,” Scherbak said. “It’s just a culture ... we’re a really religious country in Russia. We’re Christian Orthodox and our religion is really deep. Since I was growing up, I’ve believed in it. My parents go to church and I go to church as much as possible when I’m back home.”
For now, home for Scherbak is Laval, where he lives with his girlfriend. But Montreal should be the next home on his hockey journey.
It was my dream to play in the NHL and I stuck with it. My father always told me that the NHL is the league he wanted me to play in. That was always my goal.