In a comment to socialbites.ca, hockey commentator Philip Maykov, author of his own YouTube channel “HockeyPhil” and participant in the “Slippery Ice” podcast, spoke about the problems in the game of Russian forward Evgeny Kuznetsov in Carolina. He was traded from Washington at the NHL transfer deadline.
“Although Kuznetsov had quite a few marriages, this is gradually disappearing. They’re playing around a bit again. But there are really too many marriages. There were a lot of bad passes, failed passes, failed transfers, and they didn’t leave the puck anywhere in the zone. A two-minute clip of Kuznetsov playing on the power play with Brent Burns. And there were six or seven bad passes in a row. So it’s also a matter of teamwork because Burns is a defender who stands still at the blue line and only moves with the puck on that blue line. Kuznetsov apparently thinks for him and gives him a place to move, a bit to the side. And Burns, he doesn’t play like that, he just stays put, waits until you give it to him and then he starts moving. They will play together again and I think everything will be fine. For now, I don’t really understand Kuznetsov’s role on the power play, given that he plays on the bench, but Aho still takes over the faceoff. It’s great that Kuznetsov is excited, it’s great that he’s in the mood, but so far there’s probably little more to that desire than a real comeback,” says Maikov.
Kuznetsov has already played nine games with the Hurricanes and has accumulated 5 (2+3) points with a +3 utility rating. In total, he has 22 points (8+14) and -7 utility points in 52 regular season games.
Previously, Ovechkin followed Gretzky in the name Washington’s problem.