Georgii Merkulov’s path to the NHL hasn’t been a standard one. An undrafted free agent who had to leave his native Russia to pursue his hockey dreams in the United States, he’s making a name for himself, mainly with the Providence Bruins. Despite a poor training camp, Merkulov continued to work on his game to earn a recent call-up to the Boston Bruins in place of Matthew Poitras and has played in two games so far in advance of the January 2nd game versus the Columbus Blue Jackets.
A native of Ryazan, Russia, he and his father moved to Moscow to further his hockey career at age 15. After playing for CSKA Moscow for two seasons, he joined Kapitan Stupino of the MHL, the Junior Hockey League in Europe. Stupino is about sixty miles south of Moscow and closer to Ryazan. Georgii played two full seasons there with a short six-game stint at HC Tambov in the VHL, the All-Russian Hockey League, before heading to the US to further his career. He was eligible for the NHL draft in both 2018 and 2019, but no team decided to choose him.
Joining the Youngstown (OH) Phantoms of the United States Hockey League (USHL) at age 19, Merkulov produced six goals and twenty-seven assists in thirty-six games his first season, then fourteen goals and twenty-six helpers in thirty-eight games in his second season in North America. In Youngstown, Georgii started to receive the attention of NHL scouts.
The next stop on Merkulov’s road to the NHL was in college hockey at Ohio State, a member of the Big Ten conference. There, he was a teammate of current Boston Bruin Mason Lohrei. He played at Ohio State for just one season, 2021-22. He has cited his language skills as why college hockey didn’t fit him best. His hockey skills were certainly not a problem. He was named All-Big 10 first team and All-Big 10 freshman team after producing twenty goals and fourteen assists in thirty-six games. The second leading scorer on the team that year? Yes, you guessed it, it was Mason Lohrei.
The next step for Georgii Merkulov? Once Ohio State finished their season in 2021-22, he signed a three-year entry-level contract with the Boston Bruins as a free agent on April 9, 2022. After his assignment to Providence of the AHL, he played in eight regular season games and only one playoff game, with a goal and five assists. In the 2022-23 season, Merkulov played in sixty-seven regular season games with twenty-four goals and thirty-one assists for fifty-five points. Georgii has one assist in four playoff games and was named to the AHL All-Rookie team. After the previously mentioned poor training camp before this season, Merkulov was playing for the Providence Bruins again. He’s currently sixth in AHL scoring with fourteen goals and sixteen assists. He’s also worked on forechecking and defense, which earned him a shot at the NHL. Merkulov was named player of the month in the AHL for December with ten goals and eight assists for eighteen points in only twelve games played.
At 23, the 5’11”, 179-pound center/wing is now one of Boston’s top prospects. Merkulov is the current third-line center and has not looked out of place. He’s been on the ice for one goal but has not scored any points. He’s been solid with his positioning and reading the flow of play. He’s only seen an average of 11:51 of ice time over two games. There’s not a lot of data so far, but his 23.5% win percentage on faceoffs is the worst of any skater to take a faceoff for the Bruins this year; this will need to improve for him to stick around unless he moves to the wing.
The Bruins have known for some time that center depth would become an issue; the development of Georgii Merkulov could help them going forward. Since coming to North America, his game has improved at all three levels he has played regularly. He’s gone from being not a part of the organization in 2022 to a top prospect entering 2024. The future looks bright for Georgii Merkulov.
