Hat-trick in nature – Newspaper Kommersant No. 34 (7479) dated 28.02.2023

The Russian Minnesota Wild forward Kirill Kaprizov, who has gained a chic form, has recorded a very noticeable achievement in his track record. He gave his team an important 3-2 home win in the NHL regular season over the Columbus Blue Jackets, scoring all three home goals, the last in overtime.

After the match with Columbus, Kirill Kaprizov struck, first of all, with his modesty. Some bright words were expected from him, and he talked in some detail about the fact that he sees no reason to call this game some kind of special – just a good game, nothing more. Although in fact, of course, she stood out in some way.

The NHL is notoriously obsessed with statistics of any sort and loves to emphasize details and nuances in it. So, hat-tricks in her interpretation are also different and some have their own name. There is also a hat-trick that is considered extremely prestigious, to which the definition of natural is added in the terminology of the league, which can apparently be translated both as “natural”, and as “natural”, and as “pure”. Moreover, the last option from the point of view of meaning seems to be the most appropriate.

A “natural” hat-trick is when one hockey player scores three goals in a row, when there are no other goals between them, their own or others. This happened in the case of Kaprizov.

Moreover, circumstances have added extra “purity” to his hat-trick, turning it literally into crystal.

It often happens that a player’s explosion, a series of goals thrown by him, falls on a segment when his team is tearing and throwing, when the goals logically follow from its overwhelming superiority, from the opponent’s weakness. But in the match between Minnesota and Columbus, everything was different. For two periods, the guests kept it extremely confident. Before the final, they were leading with a score of 2: 0, and they could add to the list of their successes the fact that, at the very least, they hobbled the most dangerous forward of Minnesota. Well, they probably thought they were hobbled. Kaprizov was active, energetic, hunted for chances, but the defenders managed to catch him, and goalkeeper Elvis Merzlikin stood like a rock.

Columbus hockey players, however, in vain believed that the worst was over for them. Kirill Kaprizov reduced the backlog of the hosts, successfully correcting the ricocheted puck into the net at the beginning of the third twenty-minute period. And soon, Minnesota fell to play five of them against three opponents. Kaprizov, of course, was on the court and shot Merzlikin after a pass from Joel Eriksson Ek.

Next was overtime. It was already coming to an end, a series of shootouts seemed almost inevitable, when Mats Zuccarello found a pass near the defender Kalen Eddison, and he, without being greedy, gave the puck to Kaprizov, who was in a completely lethal position, in front of an empty corner, who designed his “natural” hat -trick. By the way, only the fifth in NHL history when the third goal is scored in overtime.

And after the end of the meeting, in order to emphasize the importance of Kirill Kaprizov for Minnesota, it was worth giving a few more numbers. This decisive goal against Columbus was his 37th in the current regular season. On the one hand, it seems to be a remarkable figure, but not extraordinary. Kaprizov’s sniper race is still ahead of four players, and its leader – Connor McDavid of the Edmonton Oilers, who has 48 goals – has a serious lead. However, again, the details are important.

In today’s NHL, apparently, there is no club that would be as dependent on its frontman as Minnesota is on Kaprizov.

Its composition as a whole is quite ordinary, one might even say gray. And the role of the Russian is perfectly illustrated by the same statistics. In second position in the club sniper race is Joel Eriksson Ek. But he is behind Kirill Kaprizov by as much as 16 goals. In the scorer’s race, his superiority over the closest pursuer – Mats Zuccarello – is also huge. Kaprizov now has 71 points, Zuccarello has 57. And you can also calculate the percentage of Russian goals from the total number of Minnesota goals. The total number – 175, by the way, is very modest: the club is ranked eighth from the bottom in the NHL rating. And it turns out that Kaprizov has more than a fifth of this amount – in fact, a colossal share.

In this case, you need to look at the standings. Minnesota, which, given the lack of depth in the roster, predicted a pale season, still clings to the playoffs and is second in the Central Division. Her margin of safety is minimal, but without Kaprizov, presumably, there would be none.

However, in order to assess his contribution to the performance of the team, one could do without numbers, listening to what Calen Addison, the co-author of the “natural” hat-trick, said after the match with Columbus. And he just threw modesty, describing the game of Kirill Kaprizov, in the trash and claimed that among the superstars of the NHL there are no equals to his partner – at least in terms of diligence and versatility: “You see, he does everything for us. This guy, like no one else, rushes into the corners and never loses to anyone there. It’s just kind of crazy.”

Alexey Dospekhov