Rus: Konstantin Barulin Review

Konstantin Barulin - St. Louis Blues

Konstantin Barulin started off the 2003-04 season hot. First he inherited U20 Team Russia’s starting goalie mantle from Andrei Medvedev. He started the season strongly for Team Russia, performing very well at the U20 Four Nations Tournament in front of his home team crowd in Tyumen Russia.

In Russia, Barulin started the season as High League (Russia 2) club Gazovik Tyumen’s starting goaltender. He showed a lot of maturity and the same maneuverability and butterfly that made the scouts notice him during the 2002-03 campaign, a year after he became eligible for the NHL Entry Draft.

The high point of his season came in November, when Barulin accompanied Russia’s second tier U20 squad to Canada for the Canada Challenge series against Canada’s best junior players. Russia lost five of the six contests, but Barulin was really the sole reason why the scores were relatively close and why the Russian squad did not get destroyed time and time again.

After a slow first game, when he faced "only" around 40 shots, Barulin averaged more than 50 saves the rest of the tournament. North American scouts and fans alike were raving about him at the conclusion of the tournament, but when Barulin returned to Russia, he returned to a Gazovik club with a new starting goalie, against whom he needed to compete to get back his job.

He finally put together an impressive streak of games in early December, but then had to once again leave his High League squad to return to Russia’s U20 squad to prepare for the U20 World Junior Championships. Despite often solid play at the tournament, Barulin was not consistent and failed to carry his squad to victory. His performance at the tournament will forever be remembered with the ridiculous red line game winning goal he allowed in the last minute of the quarterfinals game against Finland, knocking his team out of medal contention. When Barulin returned to Russia, he was “traded” to the Super League’s (Russia 1) SKA St. Petersburg.

While on the surface this appeared to be a promotion, it was the furthest thing from the truth, as Barulin went from being a highly utilized starter in the High League to being a rarely used backup in the Super League, playing just 1 minute (!!!) at the end of a won game during his three months with SKA.

It is unclear whether Barulin will remain with SKA for the 2004-05 season, but with the international duties now behind him, Barulin will hopefully enjoy more stability in his life and be able to establish himself wherever he ends up.

article courtesy Evgeny Belashchenko and RussianProspects.com