Continuing our rundown of the KHL’s top players in each position. 12 seasons, 12 players. Today we’re going on with forwards with the best scorer among international players: Nigel Dawes.
12 from 12. Best forwards: Matt Ellison
5. Nigel Dawes
GP: 547, G: 267, A: 234, Pts: 501, +/-: +80, PIM: 252
Teams: Barys, Avtomobilist
Country: Canada/Kazakhstan
This season started without Matt Ellison, and that meant that Nigel Dawes had an almost free pass to become the top-scoring international player in the league’s history. With 51 total points, Dawes delivered and surpassed Ellison, becoming the fifth KHL player (and the first import) to break the 500-point mark after Sergei Mozyakin, Vadim Shipachyov, Danis Zaripov, and Alexander Radulov.
Dawes, today a veteran aged 35, spent his career in the KHL lining up for only two teams, Barys and Avtomobilist. He was so immersed with the Kazakhstani club’s environment and culture that he decided to accept the call from the local ice hockey federation and started representing the country on the international scene since 2016.
However, Dawes never had a real chance to compete for the title and never climbed further than the second round in the postseason. The first couple of seasons weren’t all that impressive for the Winnipeg, Manitoba, native. He had to adjust — especially to the demanding KHL training camp — and scored 33 points the first season, and 39 the second one. “Probably [the hardest training camp was in] my first year,” Dawes recalled during an interview with en.khl.ru. “We jumped hurdles or went for a run from 7:00 to 8:00 in the morning. Then we’d have breakfast, and then we’d have an on-ice and a workout from 10:00 to 12:00. Then we’d have a nap and another workout and an on-ice in the afternoon. It wasn’t even a 2-a-day, it was like 5-a-day for probably eight to ten days! When you’re not even expecting anything like that, it’s a mental and physical grind. Then with the different culture and the food, you’re really just in survival mode.”
The real turning point for his early career was in his second season when he scored nine points in only seven games — a pace that Dawes managed to sustain in most of his KHL career.
However, it’s hard to believe now that Dawes wasn’t a KHL All-Star until the 2014-15 season. In the next year, he had another fantastic season, with 53 (31+22) points, but Barys missed the playoffs. However, he had his first chance to represent Kazakhstan on the international scene at the 2016 IIHF World Championship in Russia. Still, the team suffered relegation in the end, despite Dawes’ eight points in seven games. In the Kazakhstan national team, he played side-to-side with his Barys North-American teammates Dustin Boyd and Brandon Bochenski, a unit that also caused havoc in the KHL.
In 2016-17 Dawes scored a lot once again, with 63 points in the regular season and another 10 in the playoffs. Still, in 2017-18 Dawes, had his consecration when he topped the league with 35 goals, outscoring renowned scorers like Ilya Kovalchuk and Nikita Gusev. That year, the KHL All-Star Game played in the then-called Astana, and Dawes appeared in a self-explanatory “Hat-Trick King” costume. Despite the forward’s 55 points in only 46 regular-season games, Barys missed the playoffs once again in Dawes’ last season in the Kazakh capital. The next summer, the forward signed with Avtomobilist as the Ural franchise tried to join other KHL top-clubs in the struggle for the Gagarin Cup.
In Yekaterinburg, Dawes had a chance to play side-to-side with a real hockey legend: Pavel Datsyuk. “Obviously he’s one of the best players to ever play — not just coming out of Russia, but in hockey in general” — Dawes said. “He’s going to be a Hall-of-Famer, and to be able to play with him and pick his brain and just have that kind of leadership on the team — I know every guy looks up to him — and for him to be able to come home and play in his hometown, it’s something that he’s always wanted to do. He’s always been a special player, and I think the biggest thing is how good he still is at 41! You can only imagine how good he was when he was a little bit younger.”
However, a few high-spending signings and a potential league-breaking duo in Dawes and Datsyuk, Avtomobilist failed to go deep in the playoffs. His international career was also full of ups and downs. Dawes helped Kazakhstan returning to the elite division but also missed Olympic qualification twice in a row. Currently, Dawes is waiting for offers for the next year after his time in Yekaterinburg seems over. Will he sensationally return to Barys to break some records for both the team and the league? To date, Dawes had ten hat-tricks, including a sensational four-goal game against Traktor in the 2013 Gagarin Cup playoffs.
