Anton Alekseyevich Silaev (born April 11, 2006) is a Russian ice hockey player, a defenseman, who plays for the Nizhny Novgorod club Torpedo in the Kontinental Hockey League. Among players born in his year, he holds the KHL record for the number of games played.[5] A product of the AHO HC Torpedo hockey school, he has been in the club's system since September 1, 2016.[4]

Career

At the Torpedo school, Silaev developed as a defensive-minded defenseman with strong physical attributes: height 201 cm (6 ft 7 in), weight around 95–98 kg (210–216 lb), shoots left.[4][5] His path to the senior team ran through the Junior Hockey League (MHL): in spring 2023, playing for Chayka, he won the Kharlamov Cup, the MHL championship title.[5]

In his debut KHL season of 2023/2024, the seventeen-year-old Silaev played 63 regular-season games and five playoff games for Torpedo, scoring 13 points (3 goals + 10 assists) while averaging more than 15 minutes of ice time.[5] In the 2024/2025 season he enjoyed the increased confidence of head coach Igor Larionov.[5] In the 2025/2026 season he continued to play for Torpedo, now under Aleksey Isakov, with whom he had previously worked in the MHL and under whose leadership he helped Torpedo-Gorky win the VHL championship.[5]

By the start of the 2025/2026 season, Silaev had more than 270 hits in the KHL. The player specializes in penalty-killing situations and is considered one of the team's toughest defensemen.[5] In an interview with the KHL, he said that his goal is to strengthen the offensive side of his game and that he continues to build muscle mass, adding about one and a half kilograms (about 3 lb) in each league season.[5]

A telling episode from his junior career is the advice he received from Alexander Radulov after the playoff series against Lokomotiv: the player quoted it as a parting word to "work and develop."[5]

Links

Sources

  1. companium.ru — Regional Public Organization "FPS SO" — Samara — Chairman A. A. Silaev — Taxpayer ID (INN) 6316142965
  2. dsyunost.ru
  3. trackhockey.pro — Anton Alekseevich Silaev, 2006
  4. junior.fhr.ru — Anton Alekseevich Silaev
  5. khl.ru — Anton Silaev: "After the series with Lokomotiv, Radulov advised me to keep working and developing": News — Kontinental Hockey League (KHL)
  6. shlru.ru — TORPEDO 🏒 team rosters, current data on every player