The Hockey PDOcast - The Magic Behind Nikita Kucherov’s Wizardry

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Darryl Belfry to break down why Nikita Kucherov is such a cheat code offensively, and how all of his magic starts with his command of the wall in all three zones.If you'd like to participate the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here:https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84This podcast is produced by Dominic SramatyThe views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Since 2015, it's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dimitri Filippovich, and joining me is my good buddy Daryl, Belford. Daryl, what's going on, man? I'm ready to go. Again, I cannot wait to get started on this one. We are so back. This is another edition of our weekly staple here in the PDOCast.

I message you this every Monday night, but I eagerly look forward to this to the point where I feel like a kid. kid just waiting to open his gifts. And the listeners seem to enjoy it when we get together as well. So we're going to pick a player. We're going to meticulously grind through their tape. And then we're going to talk about it here on the show as we play some of the stuff. And today we're going to do Nikita Kutrov.

Initially, we're planning on doing Sasha Barkov, who's having a trademark dominant season that not enough people are talking about because he doesn't have a lot of points. But he got hurt over the weekend. Now it sounds like the outlook is pretty positive and he should be back soon. And so hopefully he's back on the ice relatively shortly and we can revisit that then. But in the meantime, we're going to stick in the same state and we're going to go to their rival, the Tampa Bay Lightning. And we're going to talk about Nikita Kucharov and Daryl. Truthfully, like when you and I got together, I think it was a week or two before the season started.

And we started kicking around the idea of doing this type of show and this concept. I think Kucharov was one of the first names. We floated out there as a player we wanted to study because there's so many intricacies. and details to his game that are flashy, and you certainly notice them upon initial viewing, but it feels like with more reps of just watching his tape, you come to gain an even additional layer of appreciation for just how special this guy is.

Yeah, this guy to me is, like when you talk about the upper echelon, top three, top five guys with skill in the NHL, that's where this guy is. like he i think he has like the easiest skill in the league it a lot of the skill that he he utilizes is is effortless from his perspective in the way in which he executes it and there's so much fluidity in the way in which he moves his body and the way his mind works in concert with the way his way his body works that all that is all one part but the other

piece that I think is even more riveting is just you can tell that this guy didn't just wake up one day and this is the skill set that he has. This is a guy who is a meticulous technician. That is crystal clear. You just don't acquire the skills that he is really good at, like in the areas of the ice in which he's really good at, without a million. reps in those areas. Like this guy is as talented as he is. I think he's Uber talented, obviously, and he's in that,

to be in that upper echelon, you have to have that. But if there was ever a guy who really obviously took a very hard look at some areas of the ice that he wanted to become dominant in and just put the time and the reps and really built his skill in those areas, that's this guy and that's why I think he's fantastic to study because I think a lot of what he

has built in some areas of the ice are acquired and that's what's really intriguing to me where some other guys it's like you know what like you you have to already be bringing like a ridiculous amount of skill to the table to even start talking at that level where this guy you're like you know what like a lot of this stuff like you could you could you could you could build no you you certainly can and that's kind of what i was alluding to with there's the flash and then when you watch even more there's just so much brilliance and layers beneath that and you need that additional watch you know i was terrified i mentioned the barkov injury and how that kind of threw a wrench in our plans he got hurt kuturov did um against the bruin's on monday night and left the game in the second period

and I was messaging you in a panic, like, oh, my God, we've put the hex on this guy as well. And then he comes back in a third period and pretty much in that third period shows you exactly why we picked him today as a subject, his dominance and ability to assert himself on a game. I think he created probably four or five grade A scoring chances in that third period. And then eventually ties the game in a play where he's probably the only player or one of the only players in the league that would even put himself in that situation, right? where he's working against the clock.

The clock is taken down. It's his enemy, not his friend. And he works his way down into the corner where you think, okay, he's in a pretty tricky position here. He doesn't have a lot of outlets. And then he flings, puts a little sauce on a backhand pass through multiple sticks, and puts it on a silver platter for Stamco's to one-time and into the net to beat the buzzer. And that sends it over time.

They wind up winning. And that was that type of sublime pass, the skill, but also what he did to set the foundation for that is why. we're doing him here today. So I don't know, this is probably, as I was telling you before we started recording, this is probably the most notes I've had on a player we've done so far. So I'm scrambled. I'm all over the place.

I'll let you pick where you want to start with them and how we want to dive into this episode. I think the most, like there's, as you say, like there's a laundry list that's as long as your arm of different topics that you could work with with this guy and talk all day on it. For me, I think one of the most fascinating spots, is the wall play. And his wall play, I think, is it's beyond absurd. This is the stuff that he does. And this is one of those skills and areas of the ice that I think he just took it upon

himself at some point and said, I'm going to become elite here. And I think he put hours and hours and hours and millions of reps into perfecting this area because this is one of those areas where you just don't wake up one day and your skill set just lends yourself to the wall. There's a lot of guys with great hands. There's a lot of guys who have unbelievable understanding of where they should be in space. And then this guy is like three levels above that. So when I look at him and I see his wall play, what really jumps out at me is the number of

top, the number of pucks that he can play on a first touch, anywhere on the rank from the puck is rimming around the boards hard like envision like a stamp coast one timer that misses the net to the far side it hits the boards in the corner and it's hot coming up the wall this guy can just turn with the puck as it's coming along and effortlessly one touch just put it right into point in the man in the middle he can go all the way back across dot to dot to stampos he can use if seemingly any area of the ice himself i think that the ability to like players have a hard enough time like just deadening the puck to make the next play like it's a puck coming around the wall is is a lot of times it's like three touches there's one

touch to kind of like deaden it there's another touch to kind of get it to you to a place where you can do something with it like perhaps to you your forehand or get it a little bit off the wall. And then there's a play that you're, then there's the next play that you're going to make. This guy does it all in one touch. It's he knows where he's going next and he's able to, to use his,

like to me, his footwork between and the spacing between him and the wall, his ability to gauge the speed and the weight of the puck. And then his ability to use the proper side of the stick that he needs to use to then put it right where he wants to go, all the pre-checks and shoulder checks. Like you, like, the millions of hours that you would, or the millions of reps in all those hours of being able to just take different

pucks and handle different pucks and then just be able to build your library of reads and levels of understanding and automated movements. Like I think that it's a really fantastic study. because I've done a lot of work with players on the wall. And I know how hard it is to get players to become really good on the wall. And so to see this guy operating at that level, it's just amazing to watch. Yeah, his ability to dictate the game from that right wall is perfection. And I'm glad you started there.

And let's talk about kind of his impact on the power play and how everything runs through him. their third inefficiency this year as a team. They were second last year behind that historically great Oilers Man Advantage. And Flutosh and Zawa had a really interesting piece on the athletic last week, I believe, where it was kind of this look at how power play formation has been changing and what's working and what isn't and how teams are adjusting, right? And so the summary of it essentially is the point shot has already been phased out, right? Especially on the power play because we know it's probably not the most efficient look

you're going to get another team is going to be happy when you take it. So you don't want to settle for that. Now, the second thing that's starting to be phased out is that point shot pass to the one-timer at the circle because there's not enough lateral movement on it. So generally, the opposing goalies are getting so good now that they can get across, get set, and they're going to eat that up. And so that doesn't really work. Now, a lot of teams in the past couple years have noticed that and adjusted by trying to work

that circle-to-circle cross-seam pass for the one-tenths. timer, which is great and is the most efficient shot you can get, the issue is that now opposing penalty kills are doing a lot of scouting. They're becoming very sophisticated themselves. A lot of teams are running much more aggressive penalty kills. And they're essentially hoping you're going to do that. They're sitting on that pass. As soon as you try to force feed it, they're going to jump it, and they're going to go the other way and probably get a rush chance themselves. And so how do you kind of counteract that? What do you do? It's this cat and mouse game where everyone knows the opposing penalty power play wants to set up that cross-scene pass and the other team knows it and how do

you open that lane to make it happen. And that's where Kucharov comes in here because he really is the master key that unlocks everything, right? There's no necessarily way that you can game plan for him or kind of scout him or play the percentages because from the same motion, there's no tell for what he's going to do next, right? Like he disguises his intentions so well that he's standing at that right circle or all along the right wall. And with the puck coming to him, depending on what's available, he's able to read and react and essentially either one time the puck himself

for a shot, which he's really good at, one touch it kind of softly into the bumper or middle spot to brain point for the one-timer. Go back door for the tip shot with Kalloran over the years and now with Nick Paul there, or go cross scene to Stamco's for that alley of dunk. And so when you're trying to defend that, I don't really know what you can do because, like I said, you can't play the percentages, right?

You can't say, oh, he's leaning this way or oh, it looks like he's going to do this. So we're going to play that accordingly. You can try to stop that cross-scene pass, but then that's going to open up the even more dangerous play probably to Brayden Point in the middle of the ice. So he really is such a unicorn in that way where he's able to essentially break every single rule that opposing penalty kills are trying to enforce. Yeah. And really what separates him is that he has very unique expressions of skill. And what really separates him is he is extremely comfortable with the puck behind his feet. So when he is on that, on that, you know, whatever, the left flank, his puck is behind his skates.

And he's very comfortable there. And so in order for it to be comfortable there, you have a natural way of separating your upper body and your lower body. So in order to be comfortable there, you have to be comfortable with your body in conflict. His feet are facing one way. The stick is behind him. And you can see that there's torque in his upper body. So not a lot of players are comfortable with the puck back there. And not a lot of players can do as many things as he can do with the puck back there.

And so that's what creates the unicorn aspect is that he can have his feet facing down towards the net. He can have the puck behind him. And in one motion, he could make it look like he's going to shoot it. And the next thing, you know, it's a pass all the way across to Stamco's. Or he can make it look like he's going to pass it over there. And then the next thing, you know, with just a quick torque of his upper body, now it's going short side over the goalie's glove. It's in the net. he also has the ability inside of the separating of his upper body and his lower body to anchor his feet.

So he can anchor his feet and then use that anchoring of his feet to create even more torque with the upper body, where most players have to engage the lower body to then work with the upper body. So in other words, you would see a lot of players like turn their feet. So they would face their feet one way. then they would turn their feet quickly so that that would force the upper body around with more torque and more power. He doesn't need to do that. So he could just have his feet very quiet, anchored to the ice, and then all of a sudden, boom, it's gone. And that is a unicorn aspect.

And that's why he's so hard to, so hard to defend. And he could shoot it so hard from that spot. So the amount of upper body strength, the core strength is just phenomenal. And then he can also do it the way everyone else does. So you can see him on a one-timer where his feet are facing, you know, the way where he's getting the pass from. And then he turns his feet in advance of the puck arriving. And that was what creates the whip with his upper body.

And he can shoot it that way as well. So a lot of players develop these like, you develop like a certain way in which you want to shoot. And so you just repeat that over and over again. You try to bend all of your shots or as many as you can. into that one way. Kuturov is different in that he has this way where he has this whip shot where the puck is behind him and he can use it as like a sweeping wrist shot. That is the core of his shot mechanics, but he can do so many different things with that shot mechanics. So it's not

just one way in which he's shooting it and he bends everything into that. He uses that as his core release, but then he has so many different looks that he can use and different ways in which he uses his hands, his upper body, his lower body, his feet. And I think it's the dynamic nature of the way at which he utilizes the separation of his upper body and lower body that creates the opportunity to be as dynamic as he is. Yeah. And you know what? That's probably a good point because the shot, I think, and I'm guilty myself, probably I don't give it enough credit, right? Because I think that his ability to distribute the puck and hit guys the way he has is something I keep coming back to as his most impressive skill. But he had a goal that we're going to see here in a minute against the Canadians earlier this year.

And it was like the first shift of the game. And he's just coming down the right wing as a left shot. And he essentially had one motion just off his wrong foot, just one time. times it and picks his spot and it was just an outlandishly beautiful shot and he does that and makes it look so easy and you look up and all of a sudden this season he's kind of he's finishing at a career norm right or it's around 15 percent his shot rate has gone up significantly where he leads the league and shots on goal shots on tap shot attempts and he's on pace for like 60 something goals the season while still having all of that playmaking and distributing chops and so the shot and the mechanics of

that and how he's able to in one motion, as you described it so well, whip the puck, despite being seemingly off balance, is probably his most underrated skill, I think, that we don't talk about nearly enough. Yeah, his shot, like the number of layers on this shot is really something else. Like when you're really trying to study his shot and really understand, like, what is he doing and how does he do it and how much of this, you know, could be taught and learn, which is really what my job is, the number of layers are just ridiculous and what it is that he's capable of doing.

And what I love about it is, it's like I said, it's rooted in that one shot release, the whip shot and he can do that off to catch. And so one of the also really interesting parts about Kutroft is how soft his one time passes are. and he shoots it at one time is one thing. But when we think of like a one touch pass, a lot of times that is like a bump.

So you're like the pass is coming to you and you're like bumping it. And there's like a little play in there. You still have to have a lot of control. You probably need a pretty good pass to be able to do that. Kutrov doesn't need any of that because he uses a very soft cushion catch on these pucks. And so when it comes to him, he like cushions it slightly like maybe four to six inches of cushion and then he manipulates it from there so he can pass it he can change his mind which oftentimes he will you'll see him catch it

it looks like he's going to pass it looks like the past motion is happening three quarters of the way through the next motion but the puck is so on his stick he's under control the whole time and then all of a sudden he's releasing it to the net like his ability in that four to six inch cushion on his one-touch passes and his one-touch shots. And a lot of that comes from that whip-catch shot or whip shot that he is perfected. I think that that also creates so many conditions for him to be able to do a variety of different things. And why maybe it's underrated because he doesn't, like, he hides everything so well. So it's hard to even know.

It's like all of a sudden he just shot it. So you're not even like, oh, man, the guy's got like a crazy impressive shot. And he does. There's some things he does that are that are absolutely mind bending. But overall, when he shoots so often, it's just off this like little catch. It's like a smooth catch. And it looks like almost anybody could do it. He makes it look so easy and effortlessly.

One of the things that I've said to guys when I've been through the shooting rebuilds as I've said, you know, you have a great shot when you can shoot it at your highest maximum velocity and yet you don't, it doesn't feel like you're putting maximum effort into it. So in other words, you're leveraging the way in which your body is moving and you're creating much more of like fluidity and rhythm as your assets to be able to develop the power and produce the power rather than brute strength and determination. That's Kuturov. He has really mastered the subtleties of body movement

and engaging his body in a way that allows him to just be so rhythmic and so smooth that this puck is a laser beam that he's shooting, but it doesn't look like he needs to put up, he's not, it doesn't look like he's putting everything into it. And I think that's a really fascinating part about, world class shooting like when you get up into the really top echelon that's what those guys are able to do well his decision making tree is so fascinating to me because he clearly is a read and react player right depending on where you're leaning especially when he's operating from that

half wall in the power play he'll pick apart the one weakness you expose and he's just like he's programmed to leverage a good shot into a great shot right and sometimes that means passing up what looks like a good opportunity for him you've got fans just yelling, shoot, and they just want him to, you know, not forego the opportunity to put the puck on net and have a chance to score. And sometimes, you know, the past winds up getting intercepted, gets tipped, Stamco's can't handle it properly. Something happens along the way that prevents it from wanting up being a goal and it winds up looking poor on him. But that's sort of the package. You have to live with that. And, you know, you watch like the Drive to Survive series and you

watch the F1 racers, drivers and they are, you know, when they're preparing for a race, they're like doing that kind of cognitive test or whatever where like they see the lights and they press accordingly to kind of work on their processing and make sure they're alert. And I'd love to just have a deep dive of Kuturov in that regard in terms of seeing through his eyes and his brain what he's seeing from the opposing defense out there because sometimes like these decisions have to be so quick, right? And it helps when you've done a million reps off that wall and you're prepared accordingly. But still, his ability to in that one motion essentially decide what he's going to do. with it and then be able to execute it is, I mean, it's why he's a top athlete and why he's

one of the best players in the game. But it's still almost hard to fathom for like a regular person like you're trying to figure out what he's seeing out there. Yeah, I mean, obviously he's has outstanding processing it at a world class level. But I think that he also buys a lot of extra time that other players aren't able to do because of where he holds the puck and way in which he body his body moves and the types of ways of which he manages space, I think that he can change his mind inside of different motions because he has the puck in a place that affords him the opportunity to do that. And so we always talk about, you know, players with elite processing, one of the things

that they're able to do is slow things down. Like the game just feels a lot slower to them. And those elite athletes, when they are trying to describe. what is going on with them. That's one of the first things that they all say is like, well, the game, sometimes it feels like it's in slow motion.

And that's, that's this first, it's the preparation of the million reps. I think that that's a big part of it. Two, I think they do certain things in the repetitive parts. Like what we're, when you see,

when you see Kutrov, he's in the same kind of general area of the ice doing a lot of these things. So he has these repetitive. patterns and he kind of knows where everyone's about going to be. And on the power play, it's even more, more distinct because he knows for sure where all the spots are. So there is a sense of automation that goes into that. And then it's just deciding, you know, a defenseman flipping his stick at the last second,

which opens up a pass on the other side of his body that he hadn't, that he, that wasn't there before. And now in the middle of the shot motion, all of a sudden he's able to make that pass. there's a combination of millions of reps, a combination of him having the puck in a specific spot in his body that affords him a little extra time, the understanding of where people are going to be and knowing what those things are,

and then certain visual cues that he's looking for that impact his decision making, and then having the motion that affords him the time to make a different decision. And then his processing, because he's done it so many times, his processing is at a level where the game is slowed down. This creates those conditions. So I get frustrated when I hear people talk about processing because it's always like, I don't know,

like it sounds so simplified. When there's really nothing simple about the way, way the brain works and the way the mind it works, especially in athletics and the expression of when the mind has to do something to create a physical movement, there's nothing really simple about that. And what he's able to do and the combination of things. And when I'm describing it this way, I'm dumbing it down as to all the different things that are going on.

There's probably another 500 things I'm not even considering. That's what I want to, that's what I want to be able to impart, though, in terms of trying to trying to study and understand the true level of mastery that this guy works off of. It really is something special. And like I said, you don't just fall off the couch and decide that you're going to be this at this level. This is a lot of dedication of years to his craft. And that's what I love so much about what he does. And he's found these like little spots and spaces and windows that are really cool.

And the last point I'll make on this that I think. think is even more interesting is when the puck is coming around the boards, for example, one of the things that I think is really impressive about him is his ability on first touch is so clean. And I talked about that before. But even when he just wants to handle it, it just seems like when he catches the puck, it just sticks to his stick. And so a lot of players, when they, when pucks are rimming around the boards, one of the trouble that they have is that the puck hits their stick, kind of bounces off of it a little bit. And now they have to find it. It takes a little bit of a second and then they get a hold of it and then now they can make their next play.

Well, that all takes time. With him, he's able to catch these pucks so cleanly and so effortlessly where the puck stays on his stick. He buys himself a little extra time to now have his head up, he already knew what he wanted to do, but now he can maybe second, take another look at the play to decide again. But it's because of the clean, how clean he was able to get that first touch. it affords him more time than someone else. And so it's all these like little inches that he gains along the way that really combine to create what we see. Well, you know how else he buys himself more time?

I've noticed this recently. He executed it with point in that Oilers game recently that led to a Stamco's power play goal. And he's incorporated more this year than I can recall in the past. He's not necessarily wasting passes, but he is like he's making a pass whether it is to point in the in the middle or up or kind of maneuvers it around to headman on the point with the expectation that he wants it right back because he's almost like he's manipulating the the defense to move ever so slightly to buy himself more time

on the following play and so it's kind of cool seeing him use his teammates in that regard because sometimes it feels like he's making some of these passes with no real intention of them actually deciding the play or shooting even though they're in probably a good position. It's almost like he's just trying to get it right back so that he can make a better play after that with a bit more time afforded to him, a bit more space.

And so I've definitely noticed him doing that more this season. And it's part of why he's so special and so dominant on the power play and why it's become so impossible. Is there any notes on the power play or kind of some stuff on the offensive zone wall that we haven't hit that you want to talk about or do you want to move on to the next kind of thing?

No, I think we can move on. I think one of the things that's interesting, about Tampa and when we were talking about Detroit's power play, it was very similar in this way where, you know, they have their guys in those spots and they don't really move those guys around too much. Like Stamcoast is pretty much going to stay on his side. Kutrov's going to stay on his side.

Point's going to be in the middle. So they do have their set spots with their skill sets. And there are a lot more power plays in the league that have a lot more in the way of rotation and trying to catch you in. in rotation. And I think what creates an advantage here for Kutrov is exactly what you said. He has such a manipulative mindset in terms of how he wants to move a stick out of the way or how he's trying to turn a defenseman's feet or draw him up that he's able to create a lot

of these rotations or movements within the penalty kill without him and the rest of his teammates having to move. I think that's that's a skill set that's becoming harder and harder to find. you usually have to have some type of movement. Not everybody can do this stuff. Yeah, I mean, even with the Oilers power play, that's kind of the only other example of this type of sustained dominance over the years is you've got a lot of rotation there.

And McDavid's going behind the net and kind of trying to change the angle. These guys don't have to move because Kuturov's making all the other players and the other team move for them, right? And so it's pretty, it's like a puppet master almost where he's like, oh, we can just hang out here in our spots because I'll get these guys to move accordingly. it's pretty remarkable to watch. You know, when you mentioned at the start, when you wanted to talk about his wallplay, I was waiting for you to clarify whether you're talking about the offensive zone or a defensive zone,

and it's very like applicable skill set in terms of a lot of the same habits that he utilizes. But I think one of the underrated qualities of him is his work on the breakout in the defensive zone. And the reason why I bring that up is because if you look at this lightning team, headman is obviously a remarkable passer in terms of outletting the pox surrogachev has some skill there as well for the most part though over the years they've had a type in terms of defensemen they like it's generally a bigger kind of more traditional defenseman that's good around his own net but doesn't necessarily part of the limitation or tradeoff is they don't have a lot of passing ability to themselves right and so you're not going to get a ton of just crisp clear stretch passes up the ice the reason they can get away

with it for the large part is because they have Kuturav who's essentially plays the role of like a connector or a bridge there right he essentially stands along the wall in the defensive zone and he can take any sort of rim around the wall or any sort of general area pass that their defenseman can make and he'll settle the puck and then he'll either as you see here kind of settle it down for them and get it to either point or Hagle to utilize their speed and sprint up the ice with it or he'll just whip around and kind of switch sides of the ice by getting it to the other wing, and then all of a sudden they've created space, they've created speed for themselves,

and they can move up the ice accordingly. And so his work in terms of the breakout there, I think is really valuable because we don't think of it as a defensive scale or we don't think of it as a part of being good at defense, right? But in the NBA, for example, you look at defensive rebounding and it's valued accordingly because for it to be a successful defensive possession, you have to actually get control of the ball and get it moving the other way for it to be the end of the possession.

And in this case, it kind of applies similarly to hockey where if you can't break the puck out or you can't do something once you retrieve it in your own zone, you're just going to be stuck there and it's going to be this endless painful loop where you're just going to have to keep defending. And so you can block shots, you can tip puck, you can prevent, you know, passes in your own zone. But unless you do something with it after once you get it, it was all for not. And so I think in this way, it actually is a very valuable defensive skill set for Kuturav to be able to utilize a lot of these skill plays with a puck, but do so by leveraging it in his own zone to get the puck moving in transition. Yeah, I think that, you know, when we talk about the defensive zone, it's really not, you don't really want to be defending any longer than you have to. You want to be transitioning. You know, you want to be exiting if you can.

And, you know, in our sport, you know, the players. are only on the ice for 45, 50 seconds. Some of them are 35. So call it between 35 and 50 seconds a duration. So if you got to start in your D zone, because for whatever reason, which happens often, first you have to get control of the puck,

which is difficult. So let's say it takes you 15 seconds to get control of the puck. Now you finally get it. And if you can't transition that puck out of there, and now you've got to spend another 15 seconds in the D zone. You've just chewed up almost three quarters, if not your full duration of your time

that you're going to be on the ice for that particular ship. You just chewed it up by being in the defensive zone because you couldn't make a puck play to get you out. What I think guy like Kutrov does, and he is also one of the interesting parts is, I think that players who are comfortable on their off wing in the defensive zone

create a lot of very, interesting exit possibilities. So if you look at like, for example, when I look at exits, I don't track exits for just exits when I don't track just entries. I track exit to entry. That's what I want. So an exit that doesn't lead to an entry is actually a failed exit for me under the way I look at it. So what I want is exit to entry. And that's what Kutrov can do. And guys who play on their off wing have a great advantage in this way. because they tend to go back towards their own goal when they're getting it. They can beat the pinch because they take the guy down.

They can use the middle of the ice because they're now on their forehand. They can use the weak side D. So a lot of the stuff that they're doing is they're able to change sides, creating more advantageous opportunities on the exit. Plus, if you are able to change sides, what happens is you don't have to bring a slash forward across the neutral zone who is likely going to be on. an island by himself who now is going to have a hard time entering.

Do you see what I mean? So like if you have a guy who can make plays to the weak side of the ice, you're now going to leave that forward on the weak side of the ice. And so now you're going to have much more dynamic opportunities to be able to create more meaningful carry entries because of that capacity. And players who are really good at creating exit to entry, tend to be guys who are either one of two things. They're very good off wing in the defensive zone,

and that's where they play, and then they do things from that, or they're extremely good on their backhand. And, you know, all of us grew up at a time when it was like, do not make a backhand play in the D zone ever. Well, now you just can't do that. Like you have to be able to utilize your backhand. But guy like Kutrov, his ability on the wall to be able,

to be able to take those pucks on his off wing is interesting. But the other thing is to your earlier point about the level of pressure that's on the D to just all of a sudden ask them to have to problem solve and make plays to kick you tape to tape all the time. It just is unreasonable. There's going to be a large number of pucks that are going to, you're going to have to utilize that are going to be rimmed around because the amount of pressure that's on the initial D. Regardless of how much skill he has, it doesn't have to be headmen who we're talking about who can, you know,

stick in on a phone booth and then make a ridiculous pass. It could be like a guy like, to your point, the Bogosians and the Shenz and the guys like that, that they're just saying, look, win the battle and pitch it up the boards and our wingers will take care of it because we have guys on their off winger, they're good on their backhand. And then you take a look at that lightning roster and how good they are on the boards in all three zones, it doesn't take much to figure out why they've been good for so long. But the Kutrov impact is that off-wing side.

And when you study him there and the types of plays he makes, I think that you get to that exit to entry stuff, which is to me where I think the game is starting to go. It's not just enough to get it out. You have to get it because if you get it out, the other teams are so good at re-entry, you're just burning up that shift. Yeah.

And that little bump play, it seems so subtle on the defensive zone on that wall, but it's something that I think a lot of, like the stars utilize it to perfection, right? Whether it's Pavelsky or Robertson, they're able to sort of, they absorb the pressure from the pinching defensemen and they bump it so that all of a sudden,

a guy like Rupa Hinton, in this case, it's generally Braden Point for Kutrov, has more space to move up the ice and use their speed attacking the middle as the center. And it almost creates this like runway, where he's attracted attention himself because the other team is aggressively

trying to keep the puck in the zone and now all of a sudden they're all discombobulated out of position and by just that one little subtle touch where it's oftentimes, especially if like the ticker for some of these broadcasts is on the bottom of the screen, you almost can't even see Kuturov do it, right?

The puck just kind of disappears for a second and then all of a sudden brain point is moving quickly up the ice in the middle of it and you're like, what just happened? And then you go back and you watch a replay or you find a different broadcast and it's like, oh Kuturov just had a defenseman on his hip pocket.

it and he just bumped it to them and absorbed the pressure and all of a sudden brain point is off to the races and they utilize that so well the stars do it well it's almost becoming an essential play for some of these teams and for their top lines to create additional rush opportunities off of like plays were otherwise in previous years it probably wouldn't have led to anything you wouldn't have had that exit to entry because a worse play you get it out of your zone but all of a sudden it's stuck in the neutral zone you're having a backtrack it's just it doesn't work the same no yeah and there are teams that don't care about exit to entry. They just want to get it out and get it in, like, you know, and live to fight another day. And, and there are times in a game that that's what you have to do. But for the most part, like if you're trying to make a skilled entry that, you know, has a possibility of having a controlled entry that leads to a chance, which then can set up your offensive zone because it's way harder to win a recovery in

your zone off of a shot attempt than it is off of when you've been able to just push them to the wall or off of a retrieval. And the retrieval rates in the NHL are really high. It's hard to forecheck in the NHL. We talked about first, you know, you talk about first touch and getting to first touch. Those things are really important. So the exit to entry to me is a major deal. And you get a guys who have that capacity to be able to make those plays. The skilled players don't want to slash their forward across because the guy's going on an island the forward the defenseman is now skating forward so often that you're just skating into no space the skilled players want you to change sides in the in the neutral zone so that they can create two on ones on entry and they can just

stack the deck more in their favor on the entry and so the more you can reduce slash situations from your weak side forward, that's going to come from how comfortable you are with making plays going back towards your own net, making these little bump plays, having your center not overrun the dot line. He's coming up the dot line. So now when he gets it,

he can change sides with it. And then now you have speed, and it'll reduce the amount of time or amount of situations in which the opponent's defense is able to skate forwards. It used to be you didn't want, wanted to you the defenders were all absorbing like they would just get it and then they would absorb and and it was rare to see a defenseman skate forwards to come and get you now you don't want the defending forwards to the defensemen to skate forwards to come at you you actually

want them to be skating backwards it's a little easier to create the entries that you're looking for so the whole thing's kind of flipped and it's that's what's i think really fascinating when you talk about skill sets of these players and what types of things become really important. It's these things that you're looking at. When you look at Kutrov's wall play, what is the impact of his wall play? Well, it's going to lead to cleaner exits. Those exits are going to have speed. You're going to reduce the amount of time.

The defense men on the other team can skate forwards. So now they're skating backwards. They're absorbing the speed. So now your entries are going to be better. Your dump-ins are going to be easier. to get first touch. So what's the impact of that touch? Well, it's massive.

And then when you really track it, the last part I'll put on this is when you really track it is when he gets it, track how many times he touches it, makes a play, and then gets a subsequent puck touch in the offensive zone. The numbers are staggering. And then now your best player is getting that puck off a pass or a secondary puck touch, the offensive zone. Now you get into the multiple puck touches.

Like the impact is staggered. on what those plays actually lead to. Well, you're like reading my mind. You can tell that we've been doing this every week for a couple months now because that was going to be my final point. He, I think he's like 11th or 12th in the league right now in terms of average offensive zone possession time with a puck on a stick.

But a lot of that is just aggregated because he's compiling so, like such a high raw volume of Pock touches themselves, right? Like he's very unique or uncharacteristic compared to a lot of his contemporaries. right now where a lot of young players are coming into the game. They're so smooth at skating. They're so manipulative with a puck that they like to keep it on their stick. They wait that extra half second. They want to kind of probe around the offensive zone and attack that way.

And Kutraal, for the most part, as soon as he gets it, he's trying to give it up because that means he can get it back again more quickly, right? And so just watching him seek out some of these additional puck touches in the offensive zone where not only to our point on the power player earlier, does they get the other team moving around and all scrambling in their own zone chasing the puck. But it also, I imagine, keeps everyone on his team even more engaged, right? Because even if you're the sixth defenseman on the team, if you're in the offensive zone, you have a reason to be alert and active and moving around because you know if Kutrov's out

there with you, you're probably going to get the puck and you're going to be relied on to give it right back to them. And so all of a sudden, everyone is more engaged, everyone's more involved and active. And so it gets the most out of everyone and it puts the defense in vulnerable positions. And so I'd love to see the data on just how many puck touches he accumulates over the course of a given game because it's got to be amongst the league leaders, if not number one. Yeah, that that is the most important skill when you talk about possession. And when we when we see on the broadcast that they'll say like, well, this player had his on stick, how much time he actually had the puck on a stick. I think that's a less relevant stat than how many times they get it in the influence.

One of the interesting guys to study in this regard would be Evgeny Malkin. When Evgeny Malkin first came into the league, he would average like 12 to 16 times. He would even strength, he would touch a puck. He would hold it for four seconds or longer when he first came in the league. He would have the puck. He was this long, big, gangly guy who could really skate and handle a puck, take people on one-on-one. But you'd have the puck for these long stretches, long stretches of time. that's not the game no more.

And you can see kind of in Malkin's arc as a player, it's been a process for him to start to learn to do it this way, the way that Kutrov does it, get it, move it, move, get it back, shot, recover the puck, contribute to puck recovery, win a war, win a wall battle, make another play, get it back again. Now you're touching the puck in a shift five, six times. That's more valuable than touching it twice. for eight seconds.

That's the difference. And you'll see now Malkin, his game has started to really pick up over the last little while, in part because he doesn't carry it on his stick as long as he used to. And Kuturov's a fantastic study in this regard because he is really that guy. And one of the things that Kutrov does extremely well, and we just, you know,

we talked about it at nausea, of course, was the ability to do a lot off the first touch. like one touch catch, soft catch, move it. He relocates the other guy now because he used a first touch that was so clean, so easy, he got it and he moved it so fast. The guy on the other end now has more time to handle it, just get a handle on it to be able to get his head up to make a better decision with it. And then that just, it just allows you to keep the offense going.

And so he allows players to become better because he gives them more. time with it to be able to make decisions that he needs less time with. And it just allows you to really perpetuate the offense and keep it moving. Because like I said, you have 35 to 50 seconds that realistically you're going to be on the ice for a shift. That really isn't a hell of a lot of time. So how often are you getting the puck? And once you're in the offensive zone, you don't want to leave.

You want to be in there a high frequency. And that's the other, the last part I'll give you on, on Kutrov is I think he's underrated and how competitive he is. He's extremely competitive and he wins a lot of pucks back. He's very good in puck recovery and shot recovery, which also allows them to keep the puck in the offensive zone. Actually, their whole line has been very good. And one of the staple parts of what's made them so good is how competitive all three of them are

in puck recovery and winning pucks and controlling pucks and being able to move it. And I do think that Kutroff is an engine in that way on that line. but you can't discount everyone's contribution in that way. No, you can't, but everything runs through him. And it's been the case for a while, but I think this year and the reason why I wanted to do him on today's show is he's not necessarily an unproven commodity like Mitchie Cobb and Byfield, who he did recently.

He's been around for a while. He's been so successful. People know it. But I think it's been a bit underreported or under talk about this year, just how reliant they are on him now, right? Their roster is thinned down over time. it's gotten older. Vasselovsky's been out for the first 20 games.

Their margin for error shrunk so much. They need to score more than ever. And I think John Cooper acknowledges that because you look at his usage and he's playing about a minute and a half per game more than he ever has. They're leaning on him in some of these close games. He's already had 25, 26 minute games. I said he missed like the full second period last night against Boston and he still played over 22 in that game.

And he's been up to the task in terms of carrying them so far. It's been really fun to watch. And I think a lot of the stuff he does. is so unique to his game, but also transferable for other young players to learn from and study and kind of incorporate into their own games. Darrell, I'll let you go here because we could probably go for another hour on Kutra, but we're at a time today. I'll let you quickly let the listeners know where they can check you out and talk a little bit

about the, if you enjoy this, I think you're going to enjoy Daryl's bite-sized videos that he posts on his own feed. Yeah, I think the new thing I wanted to talk about in this time for this, this one, was we're going to be doing our third annual coaches workshop in Florida in June. And for those of you who might love this type of discussion and going through video, you were there, Demetri, last year or the year before, it is quite an interesting way in which we do it down there. And then we also have kids camps getting announced this week as well on our,

and all of it you can find our website, belfryhockey.com. Yep. I was there two years ago now and it was genuinely a great time. Learned a lot from you. Got to hang out with some really cool hockey people as well. So I definitely recommend checking that out if you're able to get there. Okay, that's going to be it for us today, Daryl. We'll be back with another muse next week.

Hopefully it'll be Barkov because I am dying to break his tape down with you. If you've been enjoying these shows that Daryl and I are doing every week, but you're not checking them out on YouTube yet for some reason. I honestly think you're missing out. We're posting them all on there so you can watch along with us and actually see the stuff we're describing. Hopefully, our words are enough to kind of paint the picture for you. But if you're a visual learner like myself,

I think actually seeing the examples reciting helps and goes a long way. And honestly, in my humble opinion, I really don't think there's anything quite like it elsewhere in the hockey space. I'm super proud of the content we're putting out there. And it would mean a lot if you go and like, subscribe, comment, et cetera, to help us out with that. I'd also recommend joining the PDOCAST Discord community where we're up over 150 deep now and growing by the day.

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