In the last five years the question arose whether the esteemed prospect Kirill Kaprizov could live up to the hype. In his first game with the wilderness, the 23-year-old Russian proved that he can absolutely do it.
Maybe there wasn’t enough hype that led to his NHL debut. Kaprizov was so good at the Staples Center on Thursday evening.
After Kaprizov had blinded the whole game, he scored an incredible performance with a breakaway goal in extra time and brought the Wild to an exciting 4-3 win against the Los Angeles Kings.
« He’s a great kid, » said Matt Dumba, who jumped into Kaprizov’s arms after the game on the ice. “He works so hard. He deserved everything that came his way tonight. He is something else. «
As important as the win was – in a shortened season of 56 games, every game is enlarged – the most important thing about the season opener was that Kaprizov proved he was the real deal.
He was literally the best player on the ice, met all the high expectations in his first game in a wild sweater and made everyone wonder how good this kid can be.
« He obviously did the right things offensively, » said coach Dean Evason. “But we were systematically more happy about it, because it plays for the team game. He didn’t beat people one on one and went from end to end. He did it with his teammates. »
After an almost unobservable opening of 10 minutes, in which both teams looked like they could have used a few games in the preseason to break the rust, Kaprizov made something out of nowhere late in the first half To bring Wild 1-0 lead.
The sequence started with Kaprizov correcting a pass from Greg Pateryn, stopping for a dime, and cutting hard into the middle of the ice. While losing possession as the defenses around him collapsed, Jonas Brodin pounced on the loose puck and calmly placed it in the back of the net.
At this point, Wild seemed to be in the driver’s seat, giving new life to the Kings in the waning seconds of the first period when veteran Jeff Carter slid a puck past goalkeeper Cam Talbot just before the buzzer to join the game 1: 1 to finish.
It was a frustrating sequence for the wild to say the least, and by the second stage things started to snow.
They couldn’t get offensive against goalkeeper Jonathan Quick because they didn’t benefit from the power play and the Kings finally took control of the game. It started when Andreas Athanasiou cleared a rebound before the game to put the Kings 2-1 ahead and continued about 10 minutes later when Dustin Brown made it 3-1 with a grainy play behind the net.
That deficit finally seemed to wake the wilderness, and they began the third phase on fire, with Kaprizov leading the charge. He got things going with a spinning pass to Jared Spurgeon that didn’t result in a goal, then followed him on arguably his best shift of the night, culminating in a goal from Victor Rask to make it 3-2.
That turned out to be the spark the wilderness needed, and later in the picture, Marcus Foligno linked the game 3: 3 with a shot from the slot.
That was the cornerstone for overtime, in which Kaprizov appeared as a hero. You literally can’t make this stuff up.
« I thought he played a really good game, » said Zach Parise, who played on the top row alongside Kaprizov. He was doing plays with the puck on his stick. He worked to get it back when we didn’t have it. He had a pretty lucky jump in extra time. But I think he deserves it. »
« He gets a puck on that runaway and anyone who watches the game can see that he is a special talent, » said Dumba. « That’s why they call him Dolla Bill Kirill. »
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