No surprise that No. 97 is leading the NHL in points, or very close to the top.
Happens every season, right? Like the brightest star coming out at night.
But it’s not Connor McDavid. It’s currently Kirill Kaprizov.
Now, McDavid, who has won the Art Ross trophy five times, could still reel in the Minnesota Wild winger by Christmas — he’s picked up 100 places in the points race, the last few weeks—but Kaprizov is second with 33 points in 18 games, one back of Colorado’s Nate MacKinnon, the reigning Hart trophy winner. He went into the Edmonton Oilers game Thursday with 13 goals and 20 assists, also plus 17.
Kaprizov, who certainly is in the MVP conversation, leads or co-leads the NHL in points-per-game (1.83), has 27 primary points and 19 even-strength and has more three-point games, six, than scoreless ones, three. He’s on pace for 150 points, but if you ask the 27-year-old Russian if he likes the test of going against McDavid, who has 24 points, frankly a megastar who lives in another orbit, he demurs about that stuff.
But his coach John Hynes doesn’t. He says there’s a “He’s good, I’m good” factor.
“The top guys, in my experience, it’s about the competitive level. There’s a respect there to be able to test themselves,” said Hynes. “That’s why the guys at the top of the league are extreme competitors, they like the challenge of playing each other.”
“Like I saw where MacKinnon was disappointed that (Alex) Ovechkin wasn’t going to be playing (in the Avs-Caps game Thursday) because he’s out,” said Hynes.
But, Kaprizov downplayed the mano-o-mano aspect.
“I like playing against everyone,” said Kaprizov.
“He’s a star, one of the best players in the league, but every team has star players.”
What does he wish he had that McDavid has?
“He’s one of the best players, how I say, in the world, he’s fast, good hands. Everything,” he said.
But Kaprizov can wheel, too.
“No, I’m slow,” he said, with a laugh. He’s far from that.
“I don’t like to talk about my game. You guys can talk about it. I don’t like to say something good or not so good. I just play,” said Kaprizov, 27.
But, he one of the starriest athlete in the Twin Cities area. He gets recognized, out for dinner, or out getting a coffee. The attention is polite and welcome.
“I don’t care (about posing for cellphone photos, autographs, chats). I was this way when I was younger, too. I wanted pictures of players, or the signings. It’s nice when kids know you,” he said. “There were players on my team, growing up, players you would not know, but it was important for me to see them out in the life, not just on TV.”
Now, everybody wants to see Kaprizov, who was drafted in the fifth-round in 2015 but didn’t come over to the NHL until 2020. He is a dog-on-bone, wanting-the-puck player, coming out of traffic with it. Big shot, clever, worker. Not McDavid quick, but quick enough, with a skating style like Sidney Crosby, like Doug Weight had here in his Oilers days. Where did he learn that?
“Playing for Ufa, from (teammate Teemu) Hartikainen. I think he played in Edmonton,” said Kaprizov, of the big-body Finnish winger who was an Oilers sixth-round draft pick in 2008, a very good AHL scorer who got into 50 NHL games before he left North America far too soon and returned to Europe where he’s been a star in Russia, and now at 34, playing in Switzerland.
Former NHLer Wes Walz, who had 54 goals in 56 games for the WHL Lethbridge Hurricanes in his last year of junior, played 607 games in the show, was an assistant coach in Tampa for the Lightning, and now works on the Wild broadcast, was once a checking centre and knows a special talent when he sees one.
“Kirill can score off the rush. But where he does his damage is down below the dots. He reminds me of Crosby, with his footwork below the goal line,” said Walz.
“You watch him in a puck battle and he’ll come up with the loose puck and you’ll think how did he just get six feet of separation? What just happened? It’s his footwork, the skating thing. It’s not next-level skating, but it’s different. It allows him to win pucks all over the ice. He does play a 200-foot game.”
Walz appreciates all the stars because he used to have to try and check them, and he especially likes the stars who aren’t one-trick ponies — all offence, all the time.
Walz loves MacKinnon’s game as he tromps through the neutral zone and he plays both ends, but a quarter of the way through the schedule, Kaprizov has shown to be great with the puck and very sound without it.
“I know Nathan MacKinnon is leading the league in scoring but he’s plus-two. You watch Kirill in his own zone, on the wall. As a former player you don’t get impressed with a lot but when you watch this guy play, it’s very inspiring,” said Walz.
Walz was a teammate of Marian Gaborik, the first superstar for the Wild. He was a dynamic talent, but Kaprizov is a cut above with 108- and 96-point seasons. Gaborik’s high in points was 83.
“We had a game-breaker with Marian but this is a different level. Marian had straight-line speed, powerful, kind of reminded me of a Pavel Bure,” said Walz. “But Kirill hounds the puck, second and third opportunities.”
It’s so hard to get a superstar on an NHL team, and not just be a worker-bee group. Kaprizov doesn’t kill penalties — no sense blocking a shot and breaking a bone — but he’s sound enough defensively and reads the offensive tendencies so well that he’s also on the ice in the last minute, protecting a one-goal lead. Like McDavid, like Leon Draisaitl here.
Kaprizov is one of the 10 best players in the NHL.
“You guys here haven’t had to worry about that (star power). We knew how we had to play in this organization for years. We knew the best two offensive players were on the other team every night. You wouldn’t see them most of the night, you would be checking the hell out of them, they would get half a chance and you lose 3-1 or 3-2. Now, Kirlll is the game-breaker,” said Walz..”
Walz always played hard and responsibly. But when the surpremely gifted ones have that worker gene, too, look out.
“What I didn’t know about Kiril before coming over from Russia was his desire to be great. It’s like what you guys watch every day. There’s a lot of great players who don’t have that desire. He’s the first guy on the ice, you have to kick him off after practice. Some nights he plays 23-24 minutes.”
“He has that goofy gene where he can do something at the end of a shift, kind of reminds me of Leon where you’re thinking he can’t get much done here after an 80 seconds on the ice, and all of a sudden he’ll protect the puck and get to the middle of the ice,” said Walz.