Evgeny Kuznetsov: 2017-18 season review

July 12, 2018 10:55 am

Evgeny Kuznetsov had a breakthrough season and a historic postseason on his way to the Stanley Cup. He’s also extremely funny.

By The Numbers

79	games played
18.8	time on ice per game
27	goals
56	assists
48.1	5-on-5 shot-attempt percentage, adjusted
56.1	5-on-5 goal percentage, adjusted

Visualization by HockeyViz

About this visualization: This series of charts made by Micah Blake McCurdy of hockeyviz.com shows various metrics for the player over the course of the season. A short description of each chart:

Most common teammates during 5-on-5
Ice time per game, split up by game state
5-on-5 adjusted shot attempts by the team (black) and opponents (red)
5-on-5 adjusted shooting percentage by the team (black) and opponents (red)
Individual scoring events by the player
5-on-5 adjusted offensive (black) and defensive (red) zone starts

Peter’s Take

Twenty-seven goals and 83 points, jeez, what got into Evgeny Kuznetsov?!

Season	TOI with Ovi
2016	307
2017	329
2018	558

Oh, well, yeah. That’ll do it. Instead of playing with solid wingers Marcus Johansson and Justin Williams like he did last year, Kuznetsov spent most of his season with Alex Ovechkin, who is not bad. They scored at elite levels during 5-on-5 and were even better on the power play, where Kuznetsov’s ice time grew by 66 percent and his on-ice goal rate increased 46 percent as he played both more and closer to the net, tripling his individual rate of high-danger chances.

Other than that, Kuznetsov was the same player he’s always been – ludicrously creative, attuned for passing, and probably the funniest player on the team between the whistles. (More on all that below.)

He still sucks at faceoffs (44.2 percent won). That shouldn’t matter unless it drives your coach to make unnecessary and self-defeating compensations (i.e. Beagle’s absurd deployments), but that won’t happen again, so I’ll stop griping.

A word on the postseason, actually, make it two words: holy crap. Kuznetsov’s 12-goal, 20-assist playoff campaign was the second most productive since the lockout. Only Malkin’s Conn Smythe-winning, 36-point effort in 2009 surpasses him. It was a magical couple months.

I wonder where Kuzy goes from here. Thirty goals would be nice, especially if Ovechkin’s attempt rates trend down with time. But I’m not greedy. For now, I’m just going to enjoy the show.

Kuzy on RMNB

Y’all, get ready for some jokes-tier highlights.

Kuznetsov recorded 10 assists in the first 5 games of the season.
Kuzy vs all of Detroit. Winner: Kuzy.

Kuzy vs all of Edmonton. Winner: Kuzy.

We’ll get into the bird walk celly in a moment, but here’s roping the invisible steer.
Kuzy recorded an entire apple cart of assists vs the Avalanche.
So here was a bad idea: Kuzy the goalie.

Kuznetsov vs a bunch of mites. Winner: Kuzy.
The funniest player between whistles right here.

On his lucky-bounce goal: “By the way it’s not lucky bounce.”
From the sin bin to the scoreboard in six point six nine seconds.
Kuzy vs just a couple of Buffalonians. Winner: Kuzy.

We’re pretty sure Evgeny Kuznetsov entered a contest to win a signed Evgeny Kuznetsov jersey.
In March, Kuzy tried to score a lacrosse goal against Lundqvist, but he got too excited to wrap it up.
Kuzy vs no one in particular from Columbus really. Winner: Kuzy.

Evgeny resurrected the bird-walk celly against Pittsburgh, which is right on because you know what the next bullet is.
In overtime of Game Six, Evgeny Kuznetsov caught a jailbreak pass from Alex Ovechkin to beat Matt Murray and eliminate the Pittsburgh Penguins for the first time since the early 90s. The bird walk was triumphant. (Editorial note: I was really feeling it when I wrote the copy for that article, and I hope you can feel it like I did.)