How Artyom Levshunov -- a potential Blackhawks draft target at No. 2 -- has navigated hype and family hardships

But they’ve been gathering intel on Levshunov for a while, those in his circle say. They talked with the Tribune about his remarkable rise.

“When he was 13 years old, we instantly knew he was a success and he was a future star player,” Milstein said.

Because he was playing in Belarus, somewhat sequestered (along with Russia) from the international community because of political tension, Levshunov was an unknown.

“No one had ever seen him. There was no way to see him play,” Milstein said. “We knew the moment that we brought him, within minutes everybody’s going to be talking about it. And sure enough, we were right.”

After a camp Milstein put on for the USHL, Levshunov became the “instant talk of the scouting community as soon as he arrived here in North America.”

“I called Mike Leone, the head coach for Green Bay at the time … and I said, ‘Mike, I have the son that you never had,’” Milstein said. “I’m going to send you this kid and he’s extremely special. And you’re going to be bragging about him for as long as you’re in coaching. And he of course didn’t believe, but he called me shortly after the camp,”

Levshunov signed on with the Gamblers. He recorded 13 goals and 29 assists in 62 games, and the buzz continued to build.

There had been a question of what would be the next stage of Levshunov’s development: the CHL or somewhere else.

“We watched him from a distance” at Green Bay, said Michigan State coach Adam Nightingale, adding that he heavily recruits from the USHL. “But at that time, he wasn’t going to go to college, he was possibly going to go to the Canadian Hockey League.

“And then they had the ban on Russian and Belarusian players (first instituted in April 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine, but still in effect). So we got a call probably right around this time last summer that Arty wants to go to school, and you’re on a list of five schools. And so we get to Zoom with him and show them what we’re about, and fortunately he decided he wanted to come to Michigan State.

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