Can Philipp Kurashev replicate the success from his career-best season in the future?

There weren\'t a lot of positives this season for the Chicago Blackhawks as they finished with their seventh worst season points percentage (.317) in franchise history, but Philipp Kurashev taking a big step forward was one of them. The potential for the 2018 fourth-round draft pick (120th overall) to be a consistent top-six producer has always been there and, after three season of lackluster results, the forward finally broke out in a way that generated hope and excitement for even more progress in the coming years.

Despite not being a first-round pick, Kurashev has spent a few years being considered a top-10 player under the age of 25 in the Blackhawks organization, almost exclusively based on his potential. If you go back to what was said about his rookie season , it was easy to see why many were hopeful that he could be a top-six forward in the future. In that first season, Kurashev was putting up third-line production while being top-six in expected goals at 5-on-5 (0.52 per 60), had one of the best percentage of scoring chances (56.1), was one of the best in transition (52.2 percent carry-in success, 68 percent success rate on exiting the zone with possession), and was a top-end passer (55 percent high-danger pass success). His issues were summed up as needing a higher volume of shots, passes, and transition attempts, but all those categories took big jumps when playing with the higher quality teammates available at the time.

Now, the next two seasons were less promising, as he saw decline in many offensive categories, but there were still flashes of what he could become if given more opportunities. Kurashev actually improved defensively, especially in categories like high-danger shot suppression and puck retrievals, but being a possible Marcus Kruger replacement would have been disappointing when there was obvious productive talent in Kurashev. And both of those articles mentioned the same issue as in Kurashev\'s first year: his usage and linemates negatively impacted him while his numbers saw positive rebounds when with better teammates.

Which brings us to the 2023-24 campaign, where Kurashev finally got a high quality linemate in Connor Bedard and started to see the points pile up. The pair spent around 764 minutes together at 5-on-5 and nearly 982 minutes together in all situations, with the additional minutes being primarily on the power play. Their line with Nick Foligno (315:57 of ice time) was the most common line used by the Blackhawks at 5-on-5 by a decent margin as well. Kurashev wasn\'t always with Bedard -- he spent about 330 minutes at 5-on-5 and 445 minutes in all situations without Bedard -- but a majority of that came when Bedard was out with a jaw injury and/or in key defensive situations like the penalty kill. Not only was Bedard Kurashev\'s most common linemate this past season, he was the most consistent linemate over the last three seasons -- the next closest being Taylor Raddysh with about 521 last season, which we can all agree is a much lower quality linemate.

The results were pretty good: Kurashev finished with 18 goals and 36 assists in 75 games this season, a 0.72 points-per-game rate doubled his career-best mark. Of those 54 points, 26 (9 G, 17 A) came at 5-on-5 -- third on the team behind Bedard and Jason Dickinson. Kurashev contributed to 76.47 percent of all goals scored with him on the ice, fourth best on the team behind Bedard, Cole Guttman, and Colin Blackwell. The contribution percentage is a good stat to look at because it means that Kurashev wasn\'t totally riding Bedard\'s coattails. Kurashev may not have been the driving offensive force, but he kept up with one of the most offensively gifted players in the league quite well.

The main area that Kurashev excelled this season was his quantity and quality of passing, something that shouldn\'t be a surprise, as he\'s always been more of a playmaker than a shooter. His 8.51 primary shot assist per 60 and 3.72 scoring chances assist per 60 rates were well above average in the league and second only to Bedard on the Blackhawks. He also had 1.59 high danger passes per 60 rate a near 53 percent success (meaning his pass led to a shot on goal from a high-danger location) -- both quite good comparatively at a league level and near the top for the team.

Here are a few examples of the quality of Kurashev\'s passing in high-danger areas:

https://twitter.com/NHLBlackhawks/status/1722771876475257331

https://twitter.com/NHLBlackhawks/status/1750388211308990592

https://twitter.com/NHLBlackhawks/status/1778231550405959768

In comparison, Kurashev wasn\'t nearly as successful with his shooting habits, which have always been somewhat lackluster. Quantity of shots has always been an issue with Kurashev, and it was again this year as he had just 4.22 shots per 60 at 5-on-5, last among Blackhawks forwards. On top of that, his quality was down too as his 0.46 expected goals was also dead last for the forward group. His saving grace is that he has an above average shot and/or quick release that elevated his shooting percentage to a solid 11.69 even without shooting from the best scoring locations and shooting low volume. Kurashev\'s quick release was especially evident on one-timers, of which he was one of the best in terms of success with nearly 57 percent turning into a goal. However, the quality drop is still more concerning than the quantity: Kurashev\'s never been a high-volume shooter, but his first two seasons in the league were average to above average in getting to the higher danger areas, so that was a regression for sure.

Examples of Kurashev shooting habits, typically farther out with a quick release and/or quality shot are below:

https://twitter.com/NHLBlackhawks/status/1732956491022323790

https://twitter.com/CRoumeliotis/status/1765221133941707089

https://twitter.com/NHLBlackhawks/status/1774220180819792298

To be fair, an argument could be made that Bedard was the shooter on the line, so there was less opportunity for Kurashev, but it\'s still an area that will need to improve if Kurashev wants to maintain at least around a 20-goal pace like this past season.

Kurashev\'s transition game this season was also a mixed bag: his zone-entry numbers continued to be dull from the previous year (13.61 per 60, below league average), but his ability to exit the defensive zone was a highlight (7.45 exits with possession, above league average). The interesting thing about his offensive transition numbers is that, while Kurashev didn\'t attempt to enter the zone a lot, he was very pretty successful when he did at 51.4 percent. This might be an area where being with Bedard hurts a little on an individual level because Bedard typically handled entering the zone by a large degree (25.88 entries per 60, over 70 percent success). Still, it\'d be nice to see Kurashev increase the volume of attempts because he has the skating ability to contribute even more to driving offense.

On the flip side, Kurashev continued to be one of the best at getting the puck out of the defensive zone. He had a 6.91 retrievals leading to exits per 60 and 7.45 exits with possession per 60 rates, both good for top-three on the team. Considering how often the Blackhawks spent time in their own zone, having a player who can fetch/win battles for the puck and then successfully get it out was important -- who knows how many more goals against would be scored if Kurashev wasn\'t good in this regard (scary thought).

WOWY TOI CF% SF% GF% xGF% Bedard w/ Kurashev 764.13 41.35 40.71 35.00 42.67 Bedard w/o Kurashev 278.55 46.11 44.95 37.50 44.11 Kurashev w/o Bedard 329.37 41.92 41.88 26.09 43.51

Kurashev does appear to be trending positively, but it\'s unknown if it would be nearly at the same level if he was with another top forward not named Bedard. As you can see from the With-Without table above, Kurashev away from Bedard was less impactful -- outside of expected goals percentage -- but the caveat is that there just wasn\'t a lot of quality in the linemates available to Kurashev beyond Bedard, so the drop-off was expected. The fact that Kurashev always saw positive bumps even with just decent top-six players in previous seasons should alleviate some fears that he can\'t produce away from Bedard, but fans should still temper expectation that Kurashev\'s production might not be as high, obviously.

One more note from the rookie season analysis that turned out to be somewhat predictive was the comparison to Patrick Sharp\'s timeline:

We’ll end this on an interesting chart that came up when looking into Kurashev’s development path so far: one of Kurashev’s closest comparables is former Blackhawks forward Patrick Sharp.

This isn’t a declaration that Kurashev will ever be as good as Sharp. It just shows that, from the year prior to being drafted (D-1) to three seasons after (D+3), the tracks are similar. But Sharp didn’t make the NHL until he was 22-23 and didn’t produce at over a 0.5 point-per-game pace until he was 25-26, so this should should highlight why patience is needed for Kurashev.

Kurashev is slightly ahead of this Sharp timeline since he was 24, but of course the caveat is that Kurashev played with a much better quality linemate in Bedard than anyone Sharp did in his first three NHL seasons. Again, the statement above isn\'t saying that Kurashev will have a similar career as Sharp, but it highlights how age really is the most prominent factor in a player\'s development, so not writing off a player too early -- even if the results aren\'t there yet -- remains key.

Corey Crawford Tier

Connor Bedard Tier

Can Philipp Kurashev replicate the success from his career-best season in the future?

Talking Points