On the surface, it appeared Pyotr Andreyanov had another strong season in Russia.
A first-round pick of the Blue Jackets in the 2025 draft at No. 20 overall, Andreyanov posted a 2.13 GAA and .918 save percentage in 13 games in his debut with Zvevda Moskva, the second-tier squad in the CSKA Moskva system.
His numbers with the junior squad, Krasnaya Armiya, also weren’t bad, as Andreyanov had a 2.59 GAA and .919 save percentage in 26 more contests, then a .923 save percentage in seven postseason games.
Yet, Andreyanov wasn’t satisfied. Speaking at the Blue Jackets' development camp in late June, the 19-year-old goalie was honest about needing to be better, saying he had to climb his way back after what appeared to be a tough season for him.
“I did not have a good season,” he said through an interpreter. “I had a lot to think about and change a few things. Obviously the goals are (that) I am putting the bar very high and I'm training to get it higher and higher every time, but the biggest change that I made, I changed my preseason preparation for the upcoming season and hopefully it will pay off.”
The Blue Jackets have to love that kind of drive from Andreyanov, especially after they surprised some draft analysts by making him the first goalie chosen in the 2025 draft as well as the first netminder chosen in the first round since 2021.
Even if he had a tough season by his own metrics, Andreyanov has a bright future, as The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler recently ranked him the No. 5 drafted goalie prospect among NHL prospect pools. While he isn’t as tall as some netminding prospects in today’s world – he's listed at 6-2, 207 – Andreyanov has elite athleticism, reflexes and puck tracking skills, not to mention the competitiveness to stay in plays.
Like any goalie, Andreyanov remains a long-term project – the two goalies taken in the first round of the 2021 draft, Sebastian Cossa (Detroit) and Jesper Wallstedt (Minnesota), have combined for just 41 NHL games five seasons later. Andreyanov also is under contract with CSKA through the 2029-30 season, giving him a chance to continue to develop with one of the top teams in the KHL.
While he remains on the other side of the globe, he has plenty of support from the Blue Jackets, including from goaltending development coach Brad Thiessen. The longtime pro goalie watched many of Andreyanov’s games during the season and weighed in with pointers throughout the campaign.
“Honestly, after almost every game, I had a conversation with somebody and some suggestions of how I should have played, more aggressively or less aggressively,” Andreaynov said. “Most of it is Brad, and sometimes he just asks me how I’m doing without necessarily having a hockey question, so it’s constant communication.”
Andreyanov had a similarly positive experience at the team’s development camp, where year two felt a little smoother than last summer, when he arrived in Columbus just days after being drafted. He built a rapport in particular with CBJ forward prospect William Whitelaw, and the camp was filled with team dinners – steak and lobster are particular favorites – and doing his best to communicate with his future CBJ teammates.
“I’m very appreciative of all the teammates,” Andreyanov said. “Communication is simple. I’m asking questions, I’m asking how to say certain sentences, how to put them together, how to put the words together. They help me, but at the same time, they always are asking me how to say something in Russian, not necessarily sentences but words, and I do that too. So it’s like a two-way communication, and just because everything is positive, it’s going well.”
Andreyanov has returned to Russia, where his goal this season is to make his KHL debut; he’s been called up twice to the CSKA squad but is yet to see action. He knows there’s a different brand of hockey in his home country – given the bigger rinks, it’s more about passing to set up a shot rather than getting pucks to the net and crashing for rebounds.
But at the end of the day, hockey is just hockey, and Andreyanov has shown he has the talent, especially after posting a 23-6-6 record with a 1.75 GAA and .942 save percentage in his draft year with Krasnaya Armiya. This year, he just wants to put everything he’s learned and gone through over the past two years to good use to keep making steps in his career.
“I would like to see if I can improve my game just by making it smarter,” he said. “Sometimes you have to move more, sometimes you have to move less, so I would like to improve the game in terms of everything, of course, but specifically how smart I play in the net.”
