MORRISVILLE — The Hurricanes culminated the 2025 NHL Draft with a Day 2 that looked similar to what they did last year. More than half of Carolina’s picks were Russian, and the team’s lone Canadian junior player taken was one who tumbled in the draft despite putting up impressive numbers last season.
After moving out of the first round Friday night, acquiring two second round picks, Carolina opened the second day of the draft doing more of the same Saturday with the 34th overall pick it acquired the night before.
The Hurricanes traded that pick to Montreal for the 41st and 49th selections.
At No. 41, Carolina added a goalie to their pipeline, selecting 6-foot-3, 203-pound Russian Semyon Frolov, ranked No. 74 in NSJ’s composite top 100 rankings. He was listed No. 2 on NHL Central Scouting’s list of international goalies in this year’s draft and played in Russia’s MHL junior league the last two seasons, including going a combined 16-7-3 with three teams last year.
Hurricanes Associate GM Darren Yorke said Frolov was the team’s top-rated goalie in this year’s draft.
“Being able to read the play going cross-crease is something our goalie coaches really liked,” Yorke said of Frolov.
Eight picks later, the Hurricanes took one of the older players drafted this year, selecting Penn State center Charlie Cerrato. Cerrato, who turned 20 in March, was not picked in either of the last two drafts but made the Big Ten All-Freshman Team with the Nittany Lions last year. He had 15 goals and 42 points in 38 games after playing the previous year with USHL Youngstown and for the U.S National Team Development Program for the two years before that. He was not in the NSJ Top 100.
Yorke said Cerrato “plays exactly like how we want to play.”
“We didn’t want to wait too long to get him,” Yorke said of picking Cerrato 49th when few draft rankings had him in the top 100. “(He) probably could have been drafted last year after a strong season in Youngstown, and then (he) goes into Penn State and had an unbelievable year being one of the highest point 19-year-olds in the NCAA.”
Russian center Ivan Ryabkin (NSJ No. 42) was the top player left on the board when Carolina chose him with their third pick of the round at No. 62. The 5-foot-11, 205-pound forward — who was ranked as high as 22nd, by The Hockey News — played for USHL Muskegon for much of last season, scoring 19 goals with 30 points in 27 games. Some work ethic and discipline concerns surround Ryabkin, who many believe has first round talent.
Ryabkin is “an unbelievable goal scorer with bite to his game,” according to Yorke.
“He was somebody that we didn’t expect to just sort of slip to where he did,” Yorke added, “but we’re pretty happy that we were able to get him there in the second round.”
Carolina then moved to the top of Round 3, trading away its fourth round pick and the 2026 Dallas third-rounder landed in the Mikko Rantanen trade, to draft big Russian defenseman Kurban Limatov at No. 67. The stay-at-home defender is listed at 6-foot-4, 190 pounds, and many draft experts thought he could have gone much higher had he not been Russian. He was ranked 60th by NSJ.
“Rarely do you see Russian defensemen that like to be aggressive getting up in the play and sealing and flushing down in the neutral zone,” Yorke said. “So this was someone that, after trading back and trying to look at where we may be able to select guys, we felt like we had to get back into the draft and step up and get him.”
Twenty picks later, the Hurricanes dipped into the Russian defensemen well again, selecting 6-foot-5 Roman Bausov (not ranked by NSJ) at No. 87. The right-handed blueliner is rangy but will need to add strength as he matures.
“You look at where the game’s going in trying to take away time and space, and he’s able to do it with both his feet and his reach,” Yorke said.
The Hurricanes didn’t pick in the fourth or fifth round and then used their final two picks on a pair of Swedes.
At 183rd overall in the sixth round, Carolina selected forward Viggo Nordlund. The undersized winger is a high-level offensive player who scored 24 goals in 40 games for his junior team before being promoted and playing 15 games with top-level Skelleftea.
“This was someone that maybe slipped in the draft because of his size, and so we were pretty happy to get another offensive player late in the draft,” Yorke said of Nordlund (not rated by NSJ).
The Hurricanes then closed out their draft by taking right wing Filip Ekberg, who tumbled from being an expected second or third round pick — he was No. 71 in the NSJ composite rankings — to one of the final spots of the weekend. Ekberg, who plays for the OHL’s Ottawa 67s, dominated the U18 World Championships with 10 goals and 18 points in seven games.
“He’s got a dangerous shot but, at the same time, can also make you miss with his skills,” Yorke said.
In all, the Hurricanes drafted a goalie, two defensemen and four forwards. All seven are expected to attend Carolina’s development camp starting Monday at the team’s practice facility in Morrisville.
“I don’t think it could have gone any better than what it did,” Yorke said.
