Former NHL scout casts dark cloud over top draft pick in 2024.

One of the most interesting aspects of a National Hockey League team's duties throughout the course of a calendar year involves scouting out the best young and up and coming talents in the game. Despite this, great players can often slip through the cracks and often times lesser players are overvalued at the draft and that can be true even at the best of times.

Now imagine if the all the players were lying on top of it?

Recently a former NHL scout cast doubt over Artyom Levshunov, one of the picks in the 2024 NHL draft, when he suggested that the young man may be lying about his age.

"If I had to pick out of the top 6 guys [Levshunov] is one of the two that I'm less sure about," said Grant McCagg on the Recrutes Draftcast.

Now a scout having his reservations about a player in the NHL draft is certainly nothing to do, but McCagg's concerns surrounding Levshunov go much deeper than that. The former NHL scout would go on to reveal that there are genuine concerns that Levshunov may not be who he claims to be.

"There is a concern, and I've heard more than one, is he really the age that he purports to be?" asked McCagg. "That part of the world there's been some players in the past that their birth certificates weren't necessarily truthful."

It sounds like McCagg himself may buy into the fact that Levshunov may be older than he claims to be.

"I mean this kid has looked 18 for 3 years, you know what I mean?" asked McCagg. "He came over to Green Bay last year and everyone is saying 'There's no way this kid is 16, he just isn't' so there is that question as well. What if he is like 20 years old?"

Artyom Levshunov did of course go on to be the 2nd overall pick in the 2024 NHL Entry Draft so it would seem that the Chicago Blackhawks did not share in McCagg's concerns regarding Levshunov's future.