from Ryan S. Clark of ESPN,

One of the first things Evgeni Nabokov did after retiring from the NHL in 2015 was to fly back to Moscow so he could visit friends and watch hockey with them.

There was a night when Nabokov and his friends were joined by Vladislav Tretiak -- yes, the man considered to be one of the greatest goaltenders of all time -- and they went to watch a game where the focal point was the opposing young goalies.

"Who do you think those young kids were? It was [Igor] Shesterkin and [Ilya] Sorokin. I had no idea who they were," said Nabokov, whose 353 career victories are the most by a Russian goalie in NHL history. "I watched five minutes and everyone starts asking me what I think of them. I said I'd hate to make any judgments five minutes into the game. That's when everybody said, 'Watch, that is the next generation of kids coming.'"

Little did Nabokov know the statement made by his friends cosplaying as soothsayers about the future of Russian goaltending would be both correct and applicable to more up-and-comers than just Shesterkin and Sorokin.

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