A Russian hero – Kaprizov had a knack for scoring big goals early
Some players look like they are going to be NHL superstars as soon as they are born. Many of the players in the NHL nowadays have hockey in their bloodlines and that will probably be even more common in the future. Not all those predestinated stars become true stars, but bloodlines keep playing an important role in hockey.
Then we have other players who need to go the extra mile – in many cases literally – to become real players and eventually stars. One of them is Kirill Kaprizov.
Kaprizov grew up in Kuzdeyevo, a small village one hour from Novokuznetsk. And it was in Novokuznetsk he started to plays hockey at the age of four.
“We would depart from home at seven in the morning and get back at midnight,” Kirill’s father recalled in an interview with R-Sport. “And it was like that almost every day.”
Naturally, the kid loved the sport, and the family was eventually forced to move to the city in order to support Kirill’s career.
“He was already very focused on his tasks when he was a kid, and growing up it just developed further,” Kaprizov’s first coach Andrei Luchansky told Sergei Vinogradov for a story on the KHL official website.
“He was like an adult in his responsibility towards the team and the result. I can always trust Kirill. He hated losing and had no patience. I was living in the same block as he was, and I remember watching him and his brother play soccer with older guys. Kirill was giving all of himself in these yard battles and was never conceding anything. He doesn’t know how to play differently.”
Kaprizov’s strong character and will to win appeared early in his path towards stardom.
“We didn’t play in tournaments until kids were third-graders”, Luchansky explained. “In our very first tournament, which we played in a city located 120 kilometres from Novokuznetsk, Kirill got the attention of everyone. If I recall correctly, in each tournament we played – and we played many – Kirill always won some individual award. He scored many, many times tournament-clinching goals. I remember that once he scored a game-winner at about one second before the horn. He would always fight to the last second.”
According to Luchansky, Kaprizov always had very good grades in school, but of course his first passion was hockey. But his first idol wasn’t Pavel Datsyuk, like for most of his countrymates of his generation. Instead, it was an old good friend of his family, Sergei Yasakov, an offensive defenseman who had a booming slapshot and was nicknamed “The Czar’s Cannon”.
Yasakov spent most of his career in Khabarovsk, even playing one season for Metallurg Novokuznetsk in the then-Russian championship, but the thing he will be most remembered for is the fact that he gifted a 4-year-old Kirill his first pair of skates.
Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
It wasn’t always easy for Kaprizov. One of the biggest shocks of his young career was losing 1-20 against Avangard Omsk’s youth team. When they tried to move out west to pursue better opportunities in Lokomotiv Yaroslavl’s organization, Kaprizov was not accepted as he and his father was told “that Kirill can’t skate and can’t even play football.”
Sports history is full of such anecdotes and naturally, this reject only motivated Kaprizov even more. He developed at a good pace and was playing in the junior league MHL as soon as the rules allowed him to do so. In the end, he only played one season there. In 2014, at the tender age of 17, he started playing for Metallurg Novokuznetsk in the KHL. Meanwhile, he also started represented the national junior team, as he skated at two WJCs, going home with a silver and a bronze medal.
At the 2017 WJC, Kaprizov captained the Russians and scored nine goals in just seven games winning, just to repeat his favorite childhood feat, the “Top Forward” award. He was also the top goal scorer and the players with most points. Getting attention from the NHL was unavoidable, and his excellent technique, paired with a strong nose for the net and a high hockey-IQ guaranteed him a draft pick, although his name was called just during the fifth round by the Minnesota Wild.
Such a talent couldn’t stay away from the senior national team, and in February of 2017, just one month after the WJC, Kaprizov became the youngest player ever to score a hat trick at the Euro Hockey Tour for the Mother Land as the Russians skated past Team Sweden, 4-2, Kirill cemented his position as one of the top up-and-coming forwards in the world.
In the meantime, a lot happened in his club career. After moving out of Novokuznetsk to spend one season with Salavat Yulayev Ufa, he moved to Moscow, to start playing for the famous CSKA team. As the NHL decided to not participate to the Olympic games, he was pretty much a lock for O.A.R., which Russia was called, at the tournament in South Korea. Everything went according to plan: the Russians got back home with a gold medal, and Kirill was the hero of the final game, scoring the OT GWG with a one-timer after a great feed from Nikita Gusev.
“When I moved the puck towards Kirill, I knew it was done,” Gusev recalled about the Gold Medal Game during an interview with Sport Express’ Igor Rabiner.
Kaprizov is only 20 years old and the future looks very bright. The young man isn’t rushing to the NHL and he recently signed a contract with CSKA that will run through the 2019-20 season. At that point, he will still be very young and ready to play his best hockey. And he will do it with the experience of an Olympic Gold Medal and – hopefully – at least a couple of IIHF WC participations. His run towards the Triple Gold Club has started and considering his talent no one would be surprised if he eventually would join that exclusive company.
And this journey started in the small village of Kuzdeyevo…