Latest news with #AndreiKuzmenko
National Post
28-05-2025
- Business
- National Post
FLAMES RETOOL TRACKER: Emergence of two righties provides hope on wing
The most encouraging storyline of the 2024-25 season for the Calgary Flames was the emergence of Dustin Wolf. Article content Article content You need a stud goalie if you're going to win in the NHL and the Flames look like they've got one. Put a checkmark next to that box. Article content Is it possible, though, that two right-handed wingers breaking through would be the second-biggest development? Article content Only a year ago, the — completely correct — consensus was the Flames were severely lacking on the right. There were times late in the 2023-24 season when Andrei Kuzmenko was the only right-handed forward playing on a nightly basis for the team. Article content Article content Here is what my colleague Wes Gilbertson wrote when he broke down the Flames' depth chart on the wing around this time last year. Article content 'He could have company in Matt Coronato, who seems ready for a full-time gig. There is opportunity, too, for the towering Adam Klapka.' Article content Twelve months later, those words seem prescient. Article content A big part of the Flames' retool is developing youth at every position and there might not be a spot on the ice where the Flames are further ahead in doing that than right wing — other than between the pipes. Article content Coronato not only proved he was ready for a full-time gig this season, he was an offensive driver who showed real star potential. In his first full NHL season, the 22-year-old was third in team scoring with 47 points, including 24 goals. Article content And it felt like he was only scratching the surface of what he can do as an NHLer. Selected 13th overall in the 2021 NHL Draft, Coronato was rewarded with a seven-year contract that will pay him $6.5 million US annually, securing his place as a core piece of the Flames' future. Article content Article content 'I think now he kind of knows what he needs to do, how to score, where he needs to go on the ice, find those quiet areas, when to leave the zone early to maybe get some chances off the rush,' Flames GM Craig Conroy told Postmedia after the signing. 'And he's only going to get more and more comfortable with that. And as he does, as an organization, we're hoping the (goal) totals go up too.' Article content Article content If there were question marks around Coronato last spring, they revolved entirely around how long it might take him to fully find his feet at the NHL level. Fortunately for the Flames, he appears to be a quick learner. Article content There's still plenty to prove, but his play this season suggests there's lots of reason to feel optimistic. Klapka played in 31 games for the Flames, scoring six goals and adding four assists, but was especially good coming down the stretch when he was moved into a first-line role on the right of Nazem Kadri.
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Flyers: Olympic Champion Predicts Matvei Michkov's Future Under Rick Tocchet
Ilya Vorobyov, a former Russian national team head coach and Olympic champion, sees lots of defense in the future of Matvei Michkov under new Philadelphia Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet. Michkov, 20, already had quite the challenge--one he relished--in his first NHL season, playing for the notoriously stern and now-fired John Tortorella. Vorobyov knows this, but he also knows how talented Russian wingers have gotten on with Tocchet in the past. Former Flyers forward Andrei Kuzmenko, who was in Philadelphia for a cup of coffee before the NHL trade deadline, and Edmonton Oilers forward Vasily Podkolzin were two such examples Vorobyov gave in his assessment and prediction. Neither player lasted a full season under Tocchet during their time with the Vancouver Canucks. "From Andrei Kuzmenko in Vancouver, he demanded that he practice defense. Michkov in Philadelphia has already added a little in defense and should add more in this regard. I don't think he'll forbid Michkov from the lacrosse," Vorobyov, who previously briefly worked alongside Tocchet with the Canucks, said of Michkov and his new coach, as quoted by TASS. "We can recall that in terms of working with Vasily Podkolzin and Kuzmenko, Tocchet had, one might say, ups and downs. He is a tough coach, has his way, with him it is necessary to work out very well in defense. [John Tortorella] is also a stern man, even more old-fashioned than Tocchet." Michkov himself is already hoping for more freedom and more consistent ice time in life after Tortorella, though he's happy to sacrifice individual points, goals, and accolades for the greater success of the Flyers. This is Tocchet's mission in Philadelphia, as claimed by himself and by Flyers general manager Danny Briere. Together, they hope that Michkov and the team's other notable up-and-coming talents continue to grow and ultimately flourish under Tocchet's tutelage. The Russian phenom is already surprisingly strong in winning puck battles in the offensive and defensive zones, which speaks to his hockey IQ, knack for timing, and sometimes, contact balance. New Jersey Devils star Jack Hughes is similar in this regard as someone who is rather small but has world-class efficiency and a dexterous defensive stick. Michkov does, however, have a penchant for exiting the defensive zone in anticipation of his teammates making the right play and sending him through on goal the other way. How Tocchet manages this remains to be seen, as the concept of offensive development can be different than putting it into practice, ultimately. The 61-year-old newly-minted Flyers head coach has his skeptics early on, but he'll be happy to know that Michkov is already bought in.
Los Angeles Times
03-05-2025
- Sport
- Los Angeles Times
Why can't the Kings beat the Oilers? A familiar pattern emerges in playoff elimination
EDMONTON, Canada — Stop me if you've heard this before, but the summer is starting early for the Kings after a first-round playoff loss to the Edmonton Oilers. This one is a little different, though, because this was a season that had inspired rare promise before it ended Thursday in the same painful monotony as the last three, with the Oilers going on and the Kings going home. And that's particularly disappointing since the Kings tied franchise records for wins (48) and points (105) and set one for home victories (31) this season. Yet it ended with the team breaking another record: it has now gone 11 seasons without winning a playoff series, the longest drought in team history. A postseason in which the Kings seemed primed for a long run lasted just six games, the last a 6-4 loss to the Oilers at Rogers Place that leaves the organization once again shuffling off into the offseason plagued by doubt, frustration and one big question. What happened? 'Having the season that we had, the group of guys in this locker room, and know, to come up short again? It sucks,' said captain Anze Kopitar, who scored the team's final goal of the season. 'It's frustrating. This one hurts a little more.' Hurts a little more because the Kings lost more than a game and a series Thursday. They lost a golden opportunity. Rarely has a postseason set up so favorably for the team. After acquiring Andrei Kuzmenko at the trade deadline, the Kings went on a tear, winning 17 of their final 22 games, averaging better than 3.7 goals a game. The once-punchless power play became potent; goalkeeper Darcy Kuemper went 15 games allowing two or fewer goals, the second-longest streak in the NHL's expansion era; and the team sprinted past the Oilers to place second in the Pacific Division, its best finish in nine seasons. No team finished the season hotter nor healthier than the Kings. That also meant the Kings, who had the best home record in the NHL in the regular season, would have the home-ice advantage for the first round of the playoffs. And if they finally got past an Edmonton team that limped into the postseason wounded, they would have faced Las Vegas in the second round and a team from a quartet of Winnipeg, Dallas, Colorado or St. Louis in the Western Conference final. The Kings were a combined 8-4-1 against those teams in the regular season. It wasn't outlandish to think the Kings had a shot at the Stanley Cup final. 'It's all going according to plan,' one team executive whispered early in the playoffs. And then it wasn't, with the Kings once again tripping over a familiar hurdle. 'One hundred percent it's a missed opportunity,' Kings coach Jim Hiller said. 'We had great buy-in from our players. We believe we could have won the series. We believe we should have won the series. We didn't. 'So that's the bottom line.' The Oilers have proven to be the kryptonite to even the most Superman-ish of Kings teams, with Edmonton the place the Kings postseasons go to die. The teams have met in the playoffs 11 times since 1982 with the Oilers winning nine of those series, including the last four in a row. The last time the Kings beat Edmonton in the playoffs, in 1989, Wayne Gretzky led the team in points, current general manager Luc Robitaille was in his third season as a player while Kopitar, the only player on this year's team who was even alive then, was still in diapers. The year's loss may be the most painful of the lot though. The Kings had the home-ice advantage, one of the league's top three goaltenders in Darcy Kuemper and the top power play in the playoffs. They led in every game. Yet they still lost in six. The turning point in the series came in late in Game 3. After dominating the first two games at home, the Kings were leading the first game in Edmonton with about seven minutes to play when disaster struck. After the Oilers' Evander Kane tied the game on a controversial goal, Hiller challenged the call, arguing for goalie interference. He lost, Edmonton was awarded a power play, and 10 seconds later the Oilers went in front to stay. In Game 4 the Kings led with less than 35 seconds to play when Quinton Byfield failed to make a simple clearance out of the Kings' zone. The Oilers pounced on the mistake to tie the game, then won it in overtime. They never lost again. 'You can pinpoint Game 3, we didn't close out,' Kopitar said. 'Definitely Game 4. It's a completely different series if we go home up 3-1 versus 2-2. But could've, should've, would've.' The Kings simply wore down, especially on the blue line. That's why they gave up a playoff-worst 15 goals in the third period and overtime in the series. The Oilers scored just 12 times in the first and second periods combined. Yet asked in his postgame press conference if he regretted how he used his defensemen, Hiller was curt. 'No,' he said. And with that he walked away from the podium for the final time this season. Then there's the offense. Kopitar and Adrian Kempe combined for 19 points in the series, but had just one goal and two assists combined after Kane's game-tying goal in Game 3. 'The chances were there. We just couldn't convert,' Kopitar said. 'Credit to their goalie, he made some good stops. Credit to their team. The last couple of games they played a solid checking game and made it harder on us to generate stuff. 'We fought and came up short.' That's beginning to sound redundant.
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
All Oilers, all the time as Edmonton pulls away from Los Angeles
Things were close for a few games, but that sound you heard Tuesday night in Los Angeles was the Edmonton Oilers pulling away from the Kings — probably for good, if the last five periods are any indication. A series that started in L.A.'s favour, with the Kings up 2-0 and a break or two away from putting Edmonton in a place they couldn't recover from is now All Oilers All The time. If it's possible to blow a team away 3-1 with an empty-netter, that's what happened in Game 5 in Los Angeles, where the Oilers outshot the Kings 46-21 and took a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series with a chance to wrap things up for good Thursday night at Rogers Place. The Oilers controlled Game 5 from the start, outshooting Los Angeles 19-4 in the first period and 14-8 in the second period, a carry-over from the third period (16-6) and overtime (17-7) of Game 4. They swarmed them from the opening shift and the Kings couldn't do anything to keep them off. The only thing preventing Edmonton from being up about 4-0 by the halfway mark was Kings goalie Darcy Kuemper, who took an .881 save percentage into the game. He was all-world when Los Angeles was under siege so the Oilers had nothing to show for it but 0-0 after 20 minutes and 1-1 after 40 on goals from Andrei Kuzmenko and Evander Kane. That was fine with them, though, given that they outscored Los Angeles 11-5 in the third periods of the first four games. They only needed one this time. Mattias Janmark, from Viktor Arvidsson and Vasily Podkolzin, scored the game-winning goal 7:12 into the third period to give Edmonton its first lead of the series. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins added the empty-netter. Officiating in the playoffs continues to be substandard and there were some key misses Tuesday, none worse than when Quinton Byfield covered the puck with his hand in the L.A. crease during a second-period scramble. Referee Kendrick Nicholson, who was standing on the back of the net watching the play from five feet away, either missed it or chose not to call it, robbing the Oilers of what should have been a penalty shot. E-mail: rtychkowski@
National Post
30-04-2025
- Sport
- National Post
All Oilers, all the time as Edmonton pulls away from Los Angeles
Things were close for a few games, but that sound you heard Tuesday night in Los Angeles was the Edmonton Oilers pulling away from the Kings — probably for good, if the last five periods are any indication. Article content Article content A series that started in L.A.'s favour, with the Kings up 2-0 and a break or two away from putting Edmonton in a place they couldn't recover from is now All Oilers All The time. Article content If it's possible to blow a team away 3-1 with an empty-netter, that's what happened in Game 5 in Los Angeles, where the Oilers outshot the Kings 46-21 and took a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series with a chance to wrap things up for good Thursday night at Rogers Place. Article content The Oilers controlled Game 5 from the start, outshooting Los Angeles 19-4 in the first period and 14-8 in the second period, a carry-over from the third period (16-6) and overtime (17-7) of Game 4. Article content They swarmed them from the opening shift and the Kings couldn't do anything to keep them off. Article content The only thing preventing Edmonton from being up about 4-0 by the halfway mark was Kings goalie Darcy Kuemper, who took an .881 save percentage into the game. He was all-world when Los Angeles was under siege so the Oilers had nothing to show for it but 0-0 after 20 minutes and 1-1 after 40 on goals from Andrei Kuzmenko and Evander Kane. Article content Article content That was fine with them, though, given that they outscored Los Angeles 11-5 in the third periods of the first four games. Article content They only needed one this time. Mattias Janmark, from Viktor Arvidsson and Vasily Podkolzin, scored the game-winning goal 7:12 into the third period to give Edmonton its first lead of the series. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins added the empty-netter. Article content
