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Nabokov became eligible for the NHL Entry Draft in 1994, but was overlooked until the Sharks used a ninth-round throwaway pick to make him the 219th player selected. No one from the San Jose staff had actually seen him play at that point. On the advice of one of their Russian scouts, who knew that Nabokov's father had once been a goaltender, they took a flyer.
"Nobody from the Sharks called me, but I found out that I got drafted by reading the newspaper a couple of days later," said Nabokov. "I didn't think about it too much because I was drafted in the ninth round and I thought, you know, whatever. It's not such a big deal. "Besides, I had just signed a contract with Dynamo Moscow (a first-division Russian League team). That was kind of a dream for me."
Nabokov spent the next two seasons starring for Dynamo and essentially being forgotten by the Sharks. That changed in early 1997 when a couple of San Jose representatives saw him during a tournament in Finland, which they were attending to check up on some of their other prospects. The Sharks were impressed and offered him a contract, but Nabokov hesitated before accepting. "Moving to America was a big step," he said. "I didn't know anything about American hockey or the business stuff."
"We didn't know that much about the NHL, until the Russian players started coming over here. So we didn't know anything about it, and it wasn't my dream," Nabokov said. "The biggest issue for us was to play with the Moscow team. When you come from a small town like I did, you always wanted to play for the Moscow team."
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