{"id":708804,"date":"2026-06-01T18:53:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T18:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/708804\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T18:53:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T18:53:08","slug":"devils-sign-anton-silayev-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/708804\/","title":{"rendered":"Devils Sign Anton Silayev \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New Jersey Devils will have one more first-round pick in their system next season. Defenseman Anton Silayev<\/a> is has signed<\/a> his entry-level contract following his third season in Russia\u2019s KHL. The news was originally shared by Artur Khairullin of Russian news site Sport-Express<\/a>. The 6-foot-7 defender was selected 10th-overall in the 2024 NHL Draft. He will be the last of 2024\u2019s top 15 to sign his entry-level contract when he puts pen to paper.<\/p>\n

Silayev has had a sure role with the KHL\u2019s Torpedo Novgorod since the 2022-23 season, when he led the team\u2019s junior affiliate to a junior league championship. Even in his age-17 season, Silayev\u2019s size, smooth skating, and stick checks proved tough for opponents to beat. Those advantages earned him a full-time role in the KHL during his draft season in 2023-24. Silayev had ups-and-downs as a KHL rookie. Never the scorer, he racked up only 11 points in 63 regular season games. More glaring were the amount of times that Silayev got turned around by top-tier competition \u2013 though his aggression in board battles and ability to move the puck still warranted a top pick come draft day.<\/p>\n

Silayev has spent the last two seasons ironing out the gaps from his age-18 season. He climbed to 12 points in 63 games of the 2024-25 season, then joined the Torpedo\u2019s minor-league club for the postseason en route to a league championship. He contributed two points to 17 games of the 2025 VHL playoffs. Surprisingly, Silayev\u2019s routinely-low offense turned downwards this year. He finished the 2025-26 KHL season with just three points in 61 games. Much of that diminished scoring came from Silayev\u2019s struggles to spark the breakout in the same way he had in prior years \u2013 casting a shadow over his clear improvements on either end of the ice. Following their elimination from the Gagarin Cup playoffs, Torpedo finished Silayev\u2019s season with a brief assignment to Russia\u2019s junior-league playoffs, where he scored two points in four games while standing as one of only 20 defensemen age-20 or older in the junior postseason.<\/p>\n

A down year in Russia will be followed by a major opportunity for one of New Jersey\u2019s top prospects. Silayev will likely step into a top role in the AHL, where his big frame and puck-moving abilities could quickly stand out. He could also be a candidate to break camp with the Devils to begin the 2026-27 season \u2013 if the club finds a way to use his unique style and size in a depth role while he finds his stride. Either way, an entry-level contract will give Devils fans another player to watch close once training camp kicks off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New Jersey Devils will have one more first-round pick in their system next season. Defenseman Anton Silayev…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":708805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[28378,3063,344656,64,63,981,7519,10232,575,25176,85],"class_list":["post-708804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-2024-nhl-draft","tag-ahl","tag-anton-silayev","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-khl","tag-new-jersey-devils","tag-newsstand","tag-nhl","tag-prospects","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/708805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}