There will be a lot of eyes on Evgeny Kuznetsov this coming season. That will be for a very good season as well. Ever since the Washington Capitals won the Stanley Cup back in 2018 Kuznetsov has been an extremely inconsistent player. If he has been consistent it’s not for good reasons.
If there has been something that has been consistent about Kuznetsov over the last couple of seasons it’s that you probably cannot count of him giving a great effort on most nights. When you watch the Capitals, seemingly most games you have to go looking for Kuznetsov, he is not a guy who will stand out.
That’s a massive problem when you’re talking about Kuznetsov and his game. He is not a great two way center who might sacrifice his offensive game on a lot of nights to help his team on defense. There is a lot of those guys around the league, and maybe some on the Capitals, but that isn’t Kuznetsov.
With the amount of talent Kuznetsov has I personally believe he can be a top ten player in the NHL. That’s why it’s so frustrating to watch Capitals games and only notice him and can honestly say he had a great game once every so many games.
When you watch games how often do you think Kuznetsov was playing up to his potential? Once every two games? That’s probably too much. Once every three games? I’d still say that’s too high. I’m honestly not even sure it’s once every four games. If it is once every four games how many times is Kuznetsov having a great game in an eighty-two game season. Twenty? Something like that.
The Capitals are relying on this guy to play like a top six or even first line center. He can’t decide to bring it in twenty or so games out of eighty-two.
As I said earlier. Kuznetsov has a ton of talent. Even when he does bring a lack of effort to most games he can still put up a good amount of points. In 2018-19 he scored 72 points in 76 games. The next season he played in just 63 games but he still scored 52 points. Then last season, even being one of the worst seasons of his career he scored 29 points in 41 games. If he had played an entire 82 game season on that scoring pace he would have put up 58 points.
There is a lot of guys around the NHL who give 100% effort every night who wish they could score that many points. Kuznetsov is basically doing that in his sleep. Imagine if he was awake for more games than not.
This is why when you talk about Kuznetsov and what a good 2021-22 season could and should look like from him I’m not sure we should be looking at point totals. The point total could tell us how seriously he has taken the season.
If Kuznetsov plays the entire season or close to it and scores in the low sixties in points, that probably isn’t a good sign. He says he’s ready to go. He says he’s ready to have a rebound year. If he is going to have a good year he needs to bring 100% effort on most nights.
If he does that the sky is the limit for this guy. If he plays hard more nights than not I think a point per game season should be on the low end of expectations. He scored 83 points in 79 games in 2017-18. He then followed that up by scoring 32 points in 24 games in the 2018 playoffs. He easily could have won the Conn Smythe Trophy for playoff MVP that year, and if you ask me he should have. That being said, tiebreaker goes to the superstar a lot of the time and Ovechkin is a bigger star than Kuznetsov, obviously.
If Kuznetsov really wants to have a rebound season effort is what we should be looking at. As fans, don’t worry about points. Worry about effort. If the effort is there, the points will follow. If Kuznetsov gives a good effort this could be a very good season. Not only for himself, but the entire Capitals team.