Finally, Kirill Marchenko is ready to show his skills at the highest level.
Selected by the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2018, Marchenko has spent the last four seasons with St. Petersburg in the KHL.
With his obligations to St. Petersburg having ended this spring (despite their efforts to sign him to a multi-year deal), the Blue Jackets signed their second-round pick to a two-year NHL contract at the start of the offseason — and it may not take long for him to make an impact at Nationwide Arena.
Let's first look at Marchenko from a statistical angle. Over the last three seasons in the KHL, Marchenko has a stat line of 34-30-64 in 111 games. But those numbers come with a significant asterisk.
For reasons unknown, though assumed to primarily be Marchenko's desire to play in the NHL and in the United States, his ice time took a dramatic hit this past season. He scored 12 goals and had 8 assists in 39 games in just 11:42 of ice time. That averages to a 1.58 goals per 60 minutes. For perspective, Patrik Laine led all qualifying Blue Jackets this season in that stat at 1.48.
Marchenko's 1.58 gf/60 would have ranked him 26th in the NHL amongst skaters with matching (or more) ice time last season, where he would have been tied with — and you can't make this stuff up — Johnny Gaudreau.
Granted, that's the KHL — and while it's the second-best league in the world, it certainly does not have the talent that the NHL has. Those numbers aren't likely to translate 1:1 to the NHL. Nonetheless, these are professional players, and it's certainly an advantage that the 22-year-old Marchenko has spent nearly a half-decade playing against quality, fully developed players.
Kirill Marchenko sneaks one home #CBJ pic.twitter.com/GJltLhxlag
— Jeff Svoboda (@JacketsInsider) July 12, 2022
Speaking of fully developed, Marchenko is a 6'3", 190lb winger with a physical presence. He creates scoring opportunities for himself, limits his mistakes, and plays a steady two-way game. In other words, he's already got all the skills that young players typically learn in the AHL or at the college level.
Those factors should be enough to all but guarantee Marchenko a spot in the opening night lineup. With the top two lines pretty much spoken for, it seems most likely that Marchenko will find himself on the third line and getting somewhere between 12 and 14 minutes per game to start the season — with the opportunity to turn that into a bigger role with more minutes if his game translates the way the Blue Jackets expect it to.
Part of that larger role for Marchenko could be time on the power play unit, given his proven ability to shoot the puck with speed and accuracy. Even if he scores at just half the rate that he has in the KHL, Marchenko would — and very much could — be a 15-to-20 goal scorer in his first NHL season. If he can do that, it would not only be a successful season for Marchenko, but could be just a preview of what's to come.
