PHILADELPHIA – Even after eight years of professional hockey, Andrei Kuzmenko was subjected to a couple of rookie rituals in his first National Hockey League game. Neither went as planned, and yet both were encouraging.
Before making his debut for the Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday, Kuzmenko took an obligatory solo lap before the pre-game warmup – or semi-solo lap because rookie Nils Aman also had a twirl – and the highly-skilled Russian managed to overskate the puck while stickhandling at walking speed.
He looked nervous, but didn’t play that way against the Edmonton Oilers. It took all the way until the 21st minute for the 26-year-old to score his first NHL goal, darting to the net on a power play to tap in a beautiful goalmouth pass from J.T. Miller.
It is customary after a player scores their first career NHL goal for the puck to be collected, and the beaming recipient to be photographed with it after the game. Kuzmenko has the puck, but declined after Vancouver blew a three-goal lead and lost 5-3 to be photographed with it by the Canucks’ social-media team.
Wasn’t he happy to score?
“Yes, of course,” he told Sportsnet in a brief conversation here Friday. “But score goals, not win. . . I want score (but) we want win.”
“That’s the attitude you want everybody to think,” coach Bruce Boudreau said after the Canucks practised ahead of Saturday’s matinee game against the Philadelphia Flyers. “But I mean, he drove the net perfectly there. It was a perfect pass, but the way he went to the net is what goal-scorers do.”
Kuzmenko is on pace for 82 goals this season, which would break Teemu Selanne’s unfathomable record of 76 goals by an NHL rookie, which the Finnish Flash set in 1993, three years before Kuzmenko was born. The Canuck has just 81 games remaining.
“He’s picking up stuff,” Boudreau said of the winger who chose Vancouver over at least 20 other teams as a summer free agent out of the Kontinental Hockey League. “It’s not going to happen overnight. The great goal scorers from any league or any country, they have their own tendencies, you know, of doing stuff that you can’t get away with in North America unless your name is (Alex) Ovechkin or something like that.
“But the other thing he has that not everybody can do is he has that nose for the net. Goal scorers are not a dime a dozen anymore; they’re hard to find. We want him to play the right way all the time, but we know there’s going to be growing pains involved in that.”
There didn’t appear to be much pain to Kuzmenko’s growth in Game 1.
He scored on the power play, where he has the potential to be a formidable offensive presence down low on the man advantage. But the Canucks also outshot the Oilers 10-2 at five-on-five when Kuzmenko was on the ice, and he led the team with an expected-goals-for of 89.7 per cent and four shots.
Right next to him, statistically, was centre Elias Pettersson, who has been right next to Kuzmenko on the ice since training camp opened four weeks ago.
“I didn’t know much about him, but some of the guys I train with in the summer (in Sweden) knew him from the KHL and they said he was really skilled,” Pettersson said Friday. “I looked up his highlight videos and liked what I saw.
“From our first practice, you could just tell he’s very skillful and creative. He’s quick in small areas. But he was the second leading scorer in the KHL; I knew he must be pretty good.”
Pettersson led the Swedish Hockey League in scoring in 2017-18 and was able to immediately translate his skills to the NHL, winning the Calder Trophy in 2019. And he, too, scored in his Canuck debut.
Kuzmenko, alas, is ineligible for the Calder Trophy because of the under-26 age criterion introduced by the NHL after Sergei Makarov, one of the greatest players of his generation, was voted the award in 1990 shortly before his 32nd birthday.
“Everything is confidence and just trusting your instincts,” Pettersson said of transitioning to the NHL from Europe. “Don’t think too much, just play your game. You can tell (Andrei) believes in himself.”
There appears to be natural on-ice chemistry between Kuzmenko and Pettersson. Boudreau’s intended third member of the line, Ilya Mikheyev, hasn’t played since sustaining an undisclosed injury in the team’s pre-season opener on Sept. 25.
Mikheyev is on Vancouver’s five-game trip and fully practised again Friday. But he is not yet cleared to play and Nils Hoglander is expected to fill in for him again on Saturday.
“Petey loves to be able to give the puck to a guy that he knows can put it in the net,” Boudreau explained. “And Petey can get you the puck. I think it’ll be even better when Mikheyev is on that line because Mikheyev can translate so much better than Petey can in explaining what we’re trying to do and what Petey wants to do.”
No one was translating for Kuzmenko Friday in the visitors’ dressing room when he politely declined a more complete interview in English, explaining he’d like a few more weeks to practice his new language.
Teammate Vasily Podkolzin, who survived a challenging rookie season last year after moving to Vancouver from Russia as a 19-year-old, believes Kuzmenko’s transition to the “faster, stronger” NHL game will be smooth.
“You need a strong mentality, (to be) strong physically,” Podkolzin said. “If you’re not nervous — like Kuzy, never nervous guy – you feel good and it’s easier to play.”
Podkolzin and Kuzmenko have been friends since 2018 when they met within the SKA St. Petersburg system. Podkolzin was a 17-year-old just starting to push for a KHL lineup spot when Kuzmenko, then 22, was traded to the team by CSKA Moscow. Kuzmenko was born in Yakutsk in Eastern Siberia.
“He was a great young player with great shot,” Podkolzin said. “Honestly, nothing changes. Nothing changes. Maybe he is two more kilos (in weight), but nothing changes. He’s a great guy and also a great hockey player.”
Podkolzin said he was more excited than Kuzmenko when his friend scored on Wednesday.
“I was so happy for him because I know it’s a long way (from Russia to the NHL),” he explained. “It’s a long way for him, for his family, his friends as well. Yeah, I was just so happy for him. But I don’t like his reaction: he just smiles, like, ‘OK, that’s another one.’ I think: ‘Man, it’s the first one! It’s like a celebration.’ But he’s older, not too emotional. I hope he will score more goals.”
That feels like a sure bet.