He's In Mid-Season Form

Fans of the KHL had been anticipating the debut of former Washington Capitals forward Evgeny Kuznetsov since the moment SKA St. Petersburg announced that he signed his contract with the club. With KHL teams playing in various preseason tournaments, it was only a matter of time before Kuznetsov got into a game to knock off some rust, show off his skills, and create some chemistry with his teammates. That game happened on Friday as SKA St. Petersburg was playing in the Puchkov Tournament, and they met HC Sochi in the tournament with both clubs looking for a win as they tune up for KHL regular season action beginning on Tuesday, September 3!

Wearing #92, Kuznetsov centered SKA St. Peterburg's third line between wingers Borna Rendulic and Marat Khairullin, but this line played a bit of a Swiss army knife role as they were out for power-plays while also taking a number of defensive zone face-offs. While this trio found opportunties to score, none of them would hit the scoresheet during regulation time as KHL fans will be forced to wait for a future game where Kuznetsov may tally his first KHL goal.

However, fans would get to see Kuznetsov dent twine on this day as SKA St. Petersburg and HC Sochi battled to a 1-1 draw through 60 minutes of play plus overtime so we'd need the skills competition to settle this game, and that's where Kuznetsov looked like his old self!
Kuznetsov's classic slow approach to the net was seen twice in this shootout, and he was successful on both his attempts as Sochi netminder Alexey Krasikov had no answer for Kuznetsov's methodical attempts on the free breakaways. Down 0-2, he scored to make it 2-1 in the skills competition, and followed that up by scoring on SKA St. Petersburg's sixth attempt which would be the game winner!

It's pretty clear that Kuznetsov still has the hands and vision needed to play at a high level with his debut on Friday, and he'll certainly get better with more games under his belt. What should be noted is that SKA head coach Roman Rotenberg put the captaincy on Kuznetsov for Friday's game, and he came through when the game was on his stick as his shootout goals were a vital part of the SKA St. Petersburg victory. Moving forward, #92 will wear the captain's "C" for the season, and his coach felt he deserved the honour.

"He deserves it," Rotenburg stated. "He brought the team together through his attitude to the job. We're working to get Zhenya back to being one of the best players in the world. We have leaders and that's great. We're strengthening our team spirit, making the team more supportive, so it will strive for victory in every game."

I'm not one to declare anything with it being far too early for crazy predictions, but I suspect we'll be hearing a lot about Kuznetsov if he continues to push SKA St. Petersburg to victory. The newly-minted captain didn't find the net in the game as he and his teammates were stopped 66 of 67 times in regulation time by Sergey Ivanov, but it doesn't seem like we'll be waiting long to SKA St. Petersburg's new captain and biggest star on the scoresheet.

Based on those shootout goals scored on Friday, Evgeny Kuznetsov looks like he's already in mid-season form!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!