Winter, Nikolai Kulemin and the higher gear

I’m not alone in Leafland having noticed that Nikolai Kulemin has been slow off the mark again this season.  On the one hand that’s fine, as we will need him when things get tougher in the second half of the season and into the playoffs. (Did I just hear former Colts coach Jim Mora yell “PLAYOFFS…..PLAYOFFS….”?  NFL fans of a few years back might appreciate the reference.) But we do need the versatile winger to recapture his offensive game pretty soon.

In this sense, Nik is reminding me a bit of another one-time young and powerful Maple Leaf winger, Frank Mahovlich.  At times, Frank (a big guy for his era at maybe 6 fot 1, 195 pounds or so) could be slow off the mark, but would generally pick up steam as the season went on.  The best hockey writer of that wonderful late 1950s/early 1960s era, Scott Young at the Globe & Mail, once wrote that Leaf fans could relax, all would be well with Mahovlich.  Young’s somewhat tongue-in-cheek reference was that “the Big M”, as Mahovlich was called, would pick up his play when the tall winger had to start curling his feet to tuck them under his blanket at night.  Meaning that Mahovlich was a guy who liked to play hockey when it was hockey weather- you know, winter-time, when it’s cold and there’s ice on your windshield and snow on the ground. (The classic old photo at right shows Mahovlich in action in the early '60s.)

So maybe this is how Kulemin is, too. The talented Russian was similarly less than scintillating last year as I recall, in the early part of the regular-season.  But he certainly grew stronger and more productive as the year went forward, finishing with a nice round total of 30 goals.

Now, it helped that his center, Mikhail Grabovski, was playing the most inspired hockey of his professional life at the time.  And that Clarke MacArthur, he of the “arbitration walk-away” letdown, was a one-year contract guy trying to show the league (and particularly the Leafs) he deserved more.

The trio became, at least in our local eyes, a formidable line and Kulemin was a big part of that.

I have opined here in the past couple of years that I saw Kulemin tracking a bit like Lanny McDonald did in the mid-1970s with the Leafs.  McDonald was a very high first round draft choice in 1973 and came in with huge expectations.  He struggled a lot with his confidence in his first couple of seasons but really hit his stride in his third season with the Leafs.

Kulemin has been a bit more consistent throughout, but in fairness, came in with far more modest expectations that McDonald.  That said, he has not had the huge "breakout" season like McDonald had by the time McDonald was 25.  Leaf fans of the mid-'70s era well know that Lanny combined with Darryl Sittler to give the Leafs some real offensive punch through the end of that decade.

Kulemin has size like McDonald (even bigger), and is, like Lanny, a nice all-around player.  McDonald, though, could lift the team with a fight or a big hit and also play the walls and the corners.  While Kulemin can be physical, I’d like to see him have an even larger physical presence in the way he plays.  I like so much about his game, I don’t want to sound picky.  But I just sense he has more to give.  I realize Grabovski was out for a while, but we can all see that Kulemin, when he is getting chances, is either shooting off-target or hitting the goalie in the chest.

Confidence is an elusive thing, even for seasoned professionals.  At 25, Kulemin is still a pretty young guy.  What he probably needs most is for one to go in off his back side and then the flood gates might open and the goals will come.

In his first three NHL seasons with the Leafs, his point totals progressed from 31 to 36 and then 57.  But right now, while I'm not a big fan of "he's on pace for...", he is pointing much more to his rookie year numbers than last season's- much less a big jump in production in this, his fourth season in the league.

I think we have all been expecting more.

But in the meantime, you often hear coaches say that the best thing a guy who is struggling with his offensive game can do is work even harder in all the other areas of his game, all over the ice.  Tough checking does seem to lead to more opportunities "in transition" as we all seem to want to call it nowadays.  A little physicality might not hurt him, either.  He does not always play like a guy that weighs 225 pounds.

I’ll take it if it comes later in the season when the team will need it more, and in fairness, he hasn’t been terrible this year so far.  Just not as good as he can be, or needs to be on this team to be an impact guy.  There can be all kinds of reasons for that.  Until this season, I've been very impressed with his career arc.  But there has been some stagnation in his game of late.

I'd rather Kulemin not be traded, that he stay here and grow as a solid two-way winger that every really good team needs on its second line.

For now, I’ll continue to believe his better play is just around the corner.  It is winter, after all.