For several days now, 16-year-old defender Alexander Karmanov has been leading the Elite Prospects trends. The player, born in Chisinau last season, divided his playing time between the youth teams of Vityaz and the Belarusian Pinsk Hawks and was hardly known outside of children’s hockey. Now young players are actively increasing their visits to the main hockey statistics site, and at first it seemed that it was all the same. However, not everything is so simple.
Karmanov caught the attention of the hockey community after he reached an agreement to continue his career at Penn State University in the NCAA. This is normal: American universities usually recruit very young players with an eye on the future. However, something else caught everyone’s attention: initially Elite Prospects indicated that Karmanov’s dimensions were 212 cm and 114 kg. On social networks, Karmanov’s father made even more surprising changes: Alexander’s height is 7 feet (213.5 cm), his weight is 276 pounds (125 kg), and he still has time to grow!
On the ice, surrounded by his teammates, Karmanov looks like a model of a hockey player created by someone who got too carried away by the game’s editor. You’d expect the player’s skating to look weaker than the others – at 16 years old and with such dimensions, not everyone maintains good coordination in everyday life. On the other hand, Karmanov is helped simply by the length of his arms – he doesn’t need to take an extra step in a situation where he can simply reach the puck with his stick, he plays well positionally. “I’ve never seen a player who’s 7 feet tall and I think he skates well for his height,” adds Dobber Prospects writer Austin Kelly.
Next season, the defenseman will play for the Wilkes-Barry junior team in Pennsylvania. The club even issued a statement about it: “Despite the trends of modern hockey, Karmanov’s size and strength allow him to have a unique advantage over his opponents. His combination of high IQ and hockey skill has attracted the attention of scouts and coaches from around the world. In addition, Penn State is getting a player with an excellent work ethic who is willing to work hard both on and off the ice.”
Alexander Karmanov in the game for Vityaz
Photo: From the personal archive of Alexander Karmanov.
However, the dimensions may be where the problem lies. Seven-foot players are a rare case in the NBA, but for hockey they are simply unique. Victor Vembanyama, who is already considered the main future star of the National Basketball Association, at 16 was only 5 cm taller than Karmanov now. In hockey, the tallest player in the history of both the NHL and the KHL is Zdeno Chara – 206 cm. After the retirement of the Slovak, the leader in the NHL is Tyler Myers from Vancouver – 203 cm, and in the KHL the tallest is Stepan Falkowski from SKA (205 cm). At the same time, Myers, which is significant, has long been criticized for his low speed.
The tallest player in the history of more or less famous leagues, according to Elite Prospects itself, is Manute Bol. Don’t be surprised if you’ve already heard this name outside of hockey: the 231 cm tall Sudanese center is one of the two biggest players in the history of the NBA, where he was known for his blocking. In 2002, Bol signed a contract with an American minor league team, which even got him huge skates. The legend was included in the lineup, but never went on the ice: his legs in skates, something completely unusual for Bol, swelled up. The basketball player left the bench after the first half and spent the rest of the time signing autographs in front of a large audience.
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As you know, hockey loves taller players, but too much of a good player is often bad here too. In the Elite Prospects database, including the aforementioned Bol and Karmanov, there are only 14 players taller than 210 cm, and it is unlikely that you have heard of even one of them. The tallest player in history seems to be New Zealander Nicholas Tucker, who has only been capped for his country’s youth team in third-tier Asian tournaments. The trail of other guys who were taller than 210 cm disappears somewhere in the third and fourth divisions of Sweden and Finland or in the minor student leagues of the United States.
If all goes well, Karmanov will become the tallest player in NCAA history. But to beat the growth record of the NHL, KHL or other major professional leagues, a lot of work will have to be done at the youth hockey level. We can only hope that Alexander, with the help of coaches, develops all the necessary qualities, because we have not even seen such players at the adult level.
