Sergei Mozyakin KHL records

[alko]

This guy created many KHL records and is not finished yet.
Is there any player in this league, that could destroy his records?

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[SoundAndFury]

Frankly, his situation/time frame of not going to NA is so specific that those are going to stand for a very, very long time.

 

[Bluesguru]

How come this guy never tried the NHL? You don’t think he could of been a goal scorer there, or he just didn’t care to come?

 

[Atas2000]

How come this guy never tried the NHL? You don’t think he could of been a goal scorer there, or he just didn’t care to come?

But he did in a way. People tend to overlook that, especially in those discussions about Russians not coming over. Only in Mozakin's case the stint was that short, that it is easily forgotten. At the time ALL russian prospects worth mentioning tried to go to NA early. He played 4 games in the Q. Yeah, that is why it is often overlooked. Who knows what exactly happened, but my guess is some people aren't comfortable living abroad and never going to be. Obviously he did not like it there and decided to head home. His track record shows that he definitely had the talent for the NHL(while in his days the brand of hockey in the NHL was way different. He certainly would have been a much more fitting modern day NHLer). He just tried and didn't like it at junior level already. Another very similar case is Zaripov, who is alongside Mozyakin another most accomplished russian player to never set foot in the NHL. The records Mozyakin does not hold belong(and will belong for a long time) to Zaripov. And it was a similar situation. A short stint in the WHL, after which he headed home never to look back. It just happens. Not everyone is willing to go through the adapting grind. You also can't blame it on the money, as in those days they were making scraps in Russia compared to the NA contracts.

 

[Caser]

How come this guy never tried the NHL? You don’t think he could of been a goal scorer there, or he just didn’t care to come?

Times were different, back then NHL management would just say to these kind of players like "Come to the camp and maybe we will offer you a contract and if you're very lucky we will call you up from the AHL at some point", which obviously wasn't too tempting for top KHL players.

 

[Barclay Donaldson]

How come this guy never tried the NHL? You don’t think he could of been a goal scorer there, or he just didn’t care to come?

The NHL's issue with him has never been about scoring goals. The issue with him has been he wouldn't score anywhere near enough goals in the NHL to justify his almost embarrassing carelessness in the defensive zone. Everyone has to play defense in the NHL.

This made NHL teams tell him to come to camp, he can start in the minors, learn the system/how to play defense, and then work his way up. He chose to stay in the KHL. No one can blame him or the NHL for how they went about things.

 

[Albatros]

his almost embarrassing carelessness in the defensive zone

A funny thing to say about a guy who has been +43 in 54 games.

 

[SoundAndFury]

Yeah, he is nowhere near "embarrassing" defensively. That +43 was of course in huge part thanks to Kovar who worked really hard but that line used to play like 23 minutes per night on average, you don't play that much 5 on 5 being deadweight defensively.

 

[Barclay Donaldson]

A funny thing to say about a guy who has been +43 in 54 games.

It is easy to cherry pick stats when you only choose one stat and ignore the rest of the stats. His RSL/KHL career plus-minus is -1, 2, -6, 20, 3, 15, 34, 24, 10, -1, 21, 43, 8, 11, 10, -1, 14, 1, and -5 so far this season. That is a low plus-minus for a player who is one of the leading offensive producers in the league.

 

[Albatros]

That is a low plus-minus for a player who is one of the leading offensive producers in the league.

His career +169 is fourth highest in KHL history.

 

[Barclay Donaldson]

His career +169 is fourth highest in KHL history.

He's the highest scorer in league history. If his plus-minus wasn't in the Top 5, it would be even worse. If you remove that outlier season and make it closer to his <<normal>> then it drops massively.

 

[Atas2000]

He's the highest scorer in league history. If his plus-minus wasn't in the Top 5, it would be even worse. If you remove that outlier season and make it closer to his <<normal>> then it drops massively.

Oh, now we remove "outlier seasons"? That is not how statistics works. At least you would have to remove the other "outlier seasons" on the other side of the spectrum and actually also prove that removing makes sense. Then you of course as usual disregard how the +/- stat works. Please revisit all the +/- Ovechkin threads first. And let's not forget the stat is heavily team corelated. On a bad season of bad team no one is getting great +/-, even the ones who are actually not resposible for the desaster of a season.

Let's face it, you are just trying to smuggle the ususal narrative about "soft, offence only, bad dfensively Russians". It smells funny 'cause it's dead and burried. Otherwise how do you want to prove your point? He played a whopping 4 games in NA. In juniors no less. How did they determine at that age and with that sample size, that he there is not enough Selke in him? And please don't tell me they never tried to bring him over later, because they did. He just wasn't interested anymore(obviously of course partially because no one would offer him a one-way, cushioned, top6 guaranteed contract/agreement and he would have to prove himself). He wasn't any bad defensively in the RSL/KHL. How do you figure he would have been bad defensively in the NHL without ANY sample size?

 

[SoundAndFury]

I think we all understand that even 1 game would have been enough to realize a low-intensity guy who doesn't do board battles doesn't have enough Selke in him. It's like you are both overdoing it.

Mozyakin isn't terrible defensively at the KHL level and is a really good possession player but he would have had his ass ridden hard for defensive shortcomings in NA. He is very similar to Gusev that way. Considering by the time NHL teams were really interested in him he was making millions in Russia it's understandable he passed on that to not be in a Shipachyov-like situation.