Fitting Kuzmenko

[islefan31]

Even with his demotion to L3, he's still getting top PP time and putting up the points. The problem with Kuzmenko are the banger cats, or lack of banger cats. Paul(C/L) is probably the most expendable, but he's one of my better bangers and is in a decent position to get his share of points. Considering I have a few PPG softies on my squad is there a fit here? He's also L/R in Yahoo which is a plus.

[Bubba55]

Paul or Buchnevich would be guys you could look to upgrade on, but IMO Kuzmenko is not the answer. The L/R designation is nice and if a player that offers that is something you really need, then this might be an option for you, but I honestly just don't like it.

[Belexus75]

I think Kuzmenko can be as good as panarin… I would definitely find room one way or another

[ericdaoust]

Depending on the depth of your FA pool you can get creative here (I'm assuming your WW is deep because Kuzmenko is there). You can drop Paul tempoarily and add Kuzmenko, while hunting for a sell-high trade elsewhere on your roster. Once a roster position is freed (via trade or injury) you can re-add Paul.

Straight-up I prefer Kuzmenko over Paul but ditching Paul might be a net loss for your team. What you do here depends on how much faith you have in leveraging the FA pool to your advantage.

[Fighting_Emu]

Fwiw (which may not be much) the youtuber legorocks whose at least a fun watch (and ISa nicks fan) said to his eyes kuzmenko is a future superstar.

Again fwiw....

[islefan31]

Depending on the depth of your FA pool you can get creative here (I'm assuming your WW is deep because Kuzmenko is there). You can drop Paul tempoarily and add Kuzmenko, while hunting for a sell-high trade elsewhere on your roster. Once a roster position is freed (via trade or injury) you can re-add Paul.

Straight-up I prefer Kuzmenko over Paul but ditching Paul might be a net loss for your team. What you do here depends on how much faith you have in leveraging the FA pool to your advantage.

I like this idea.

[islefan31]

I dropped Paul and grabbed Kuz, for now. There's a lot of red flags regarding the heater he's on, primarily that insane 25% shooting percentage. But there's always someone on waivers that is riding a hot streak so worst case I ride him till he cools off or roll with him if he doesn't. His low shot totals and complete lack of peripherals is a bit concerning as well......but if he keeps putting up points I'll need to work around that. Thanks again.

[RizzeeDizzee]

I think Kuzmenko can be as good as panarin…

File this under comments that I'm afraid won't age well. He's two years older as a rookie, a UFA to be, and go look up the names Dmitri Kvartalnov and Nikolai Borshevsky.

[islefan31]

Well in my haste to grab him, I didn't bother to look at next weeks schedules. Not only won't I fit him in my lineup tonight, but he only plays twice on my busy days next week. This may be a very short lived add as I'm fighting my way out of the basement due to a 1-4 record to start the season. Thankfully things have righted themselves and I'm about to win my 4th in a row, including beating 3 of 4 teams ahead of me in the standings.

[Belexus75]

File this under comments that I'm afraid won't age well. He's two years older as a rookie, a UFA to be, and go look up the names Dmitri Kvartalnov and Nikolai Borshevsky.

i watch Borshevsky so dont need to look him up...and if comments came from someone with actual knowledge, which we have plenty here, i would think about it...

[RizzeeDizzee]

i watch Borshevsky so dont need to look him up...and if comments came from someone with actual knowledge, which we have plenty here, i would think about it...

All I'm saying is guys who were rookies as old as Kuzmenko have started strong only to crash and burn. Consider also Nikita Gusev, if you need a more recent name. And for you to compare him to Panarin, who's basically one of the most elite players in the game and debuted at an age two years younger while playing on a 2 year RFA deal, not a one year UFA deal, I'm not sure what else to say except go ahead and bookmark this and come back to it in 2024.

[vandalay]

All I'm saying is guys who were rookies as old as Kuzmenko have started strong only to crash and burn. Consider also Nikita Gusev, if you need a more recent name. And for you to compare him to Panarin, who's basically one of the most elite players in the game and debuted at an age two years younger while playing on a 2 year RFA deal, not a one year UFA deal, I'm not sure what else to say except go ahead and bookmark this and come back to it in 2024.

Gusev was tiny and weak, and also was an awful skater. Very bad comparison to Kuzmenko who does not share any of those qualities. Much worse than the comparison to Panarin. I don’t think he’s near the player that Panarin is but he’s been very impressive. He’s obviously in an ideal situation so there has to be concern about how he would do in a less ideal situation but I’ve watched about 10 of his games and my take is that he would fit in well on lots of teams, including on the power play.

[Fighting_Emu]

I haven't seen him lately but I watched a handful of games early on to see how he looked. He wasn't scoring back then but in two of those games there was twice I swear he was like a millimeter away from scoring lol! I know close only counts in horseshoes but I think it highlights how dangerous he has been. The criticism is that he takes shifts, night or whole road trips off- lol- but if he can iron that consistency out i see a very good player there. I don't think Panarin is the best comparison though hes a certified gamebreaker wheras I look at kuzmenko like a barzal type- immensely talented, but the circumstances of any given season- teammates, systems- might limit his absolute upside. I think he can be a reliable 70 point player who can threaten a point per game pace in any given season. I'll add that some people see him as turning out better than that...

[RizzeeDizzee]

I think he can be a reliable 70 point player who can threaten a point per game pace in any given season. I'll add that some people see him as turning out better than that...

If I had a time machine I'd imagine the same was said about Dmitri Kvartalnov and Nikolai Borshevsky back around this time when they were rookies. Kuzmeno's IPPs just don't paint a picture of a player who'll be a long term success.

[Fighting_Emu]

I'm not saying you're wrong- i enjoy your articles and generally find the logic sound...

But...

I don't like the player comparisons for obvious reasons- we have no idea what was going on tith thise players. He has so passed so many determination factors already- hes conquered the language barrier, he's established chemistry with a superstar, he's survived incinsistency- the bottom line is this player is unique id like to judge him on his own merits. If we just say all KHL players are doomed to fail because most did we will nevwr find the outliers and thats what interests me.

So you're saying IPP is the issue? Admittedly this is not my strong suit but I see him having a slightly worse PP than EP a tad worse than a guy like Horvath whose on a tear- he has a substantially higher PpIPP than EP tbh. In each case were talking like two percentile.. At 65ish he seems right in the money spot with room to grow from there no? As a comparison Panarin floated right around there at 75 and then 71 in his first two seasons before flaring up to 80%.

If you don't believe in the player thats fine but unless I'm missing something his ipp is fine. EPs is 2 percentile different and were not talking about him playing himself out of the league. I'll reiterate borchevsky et all don't provide a lot of sway for me- Canucks management has put a lot of resources into making this work over and above the usual agent calls. I think they see something and more importantly they seem like they are willing to invest in his future and give at least some time for his talent, chemistry and production to grow along side that of other key offensive cogs on the team.

Respectfully- I can't really find a lot of merit in these two points. This isn't about being stubborn on a player either- im willing to sell if thats the right play but other pundits are calling him a future star and the two factors here don't seem to add a lot of weight to the argument- again respectfully...