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How Buffalo Sabres prospect Jiří Kulich’s breakthrough has stood out during 3-game winning streak
How Buffalo Sabres prospect Jiří Kulich’s breakthrough has stood out during 3-game winning streak
Kulich’s emergence has been a welcome development for a Sabres team that’s lacked secondary scoring.
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Jiří Kulich’s shot has been NHL-ready since the moment he was drafted 28th by the Buffalo Sabres in 2022. Overpowering goalies has been the norm for Kulich; the last two years in the AHL he scored 58 goals between the regular season and playoffs.
But while he was scoring all of those goals, Kulich was also learning all of the details it takes to succeed in the NHL: the awareness in the defensive zone, the strength to win puck battles, the willingness to get to the front of the net. Kulich knew he needed to be stronger and play harder to impact NHL games the way he was impacting games in the Czech league and the AHL.
Over the last couple of weeks, Kulich’s work has shone through, with a productive stretch of NHL action. That continued on Sunday with a key goal in the Sabres’ 4-2 win over the Blues. With Buffalo up 3-2, Kulich grabbed a loose puck in the defensive zone, passed to himself off the boards, burst through the neutral zone and snuck an odd-angle shot through the legs of Blues goalie Jordan Binnington.
It was Kulich’s seventh goal of the season, and three of those goals have come during Buffalo’s recent three-game winning streak. During this three-game stretch, the Sabres are outscoring opponents 6-1 and have 61 percent of the scoring chances with Kulich on the ice at five-on-five.
“It’s obviously not always easy to make that jump and then be extremely productive,” Sabres forward Beck Malenstyn said before the team’s road trip. “It’s easy to be effective at times within your role, but production is hard at any level. For him to come up and be playing the way he’s playing and creating the offense he’s creating at a high level is extremely impressive. I can remember playing him when he was 18 in the American League during that playoff run. You could see there was a lot of skill, a lot of speed and he could really shoot the puck. To see that translate at this level wasn’t a huge surprise for me.”
The way Kulich is scoring is important. Against the Islanders, with the Sabres already leading 6-1, Kulich forced a turnover in the defensive zone, muscled through contact at the blue line and then got the shot off.
“The effort he made inside our blue line to knock one person down, fend off another person on the entry, and then get himself inside that key scoring area to shoot it, and it was an absolutely perfect shot,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said on Friday. “But I think what he did up ice helped him get the reward down ice.”
That’s part of why Ruff has played Kulich at center lately. He’s won 50.3 percent of his faceoffs and is earning Ruff’s trust with his defensive play. In addition to his shot, his strength stood out during his draft year. He needed to add muscle, but it was clear he had the frame to do so. He’s not the biggest player, but at 6-foot-1, 190 pounds, he’s built differently than some of the smaller players in Buffalo’s prospect pool. Kulich committed himself to adding muscle to his frame this summer and also worked on playing a stronger, tougher game.
Kulich was the third of the Sabres’ three first-round picks in 2022, but he’s the one who has carved out a role in the NHL. Matt Savoie, taken No. 9, has since been traded and is playing for Edmonton’s AHL affiliate. Noah Ostlund, taken No. 16, has one goal and zero assists in 10 games for Rochester as he’s dealt with an injury in his first season in North America.
Kulich’s maturity, physically and mentally, is notable. Malenstyn laughed talking about Kulich’s quiet, dry sense of humor. He’s thousands of miles from home and still getting comfortable speaking English, but his personality is starting to show through. Sabres goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen remembers what it’s like to be living out of hotels, bouncing between the AHL and NHL and dealing with the occasional bouts of homesickness. He’s made a point to check in with Kulich and make sure he’s comfortable. He’s noticed Kulich finding his confidence on the ice, and that’s helped him use his shot more.
“It just comes off his stick so fast,” Luukkonen said. “It’s so effortless for him. A similar shot I’ve seen is what Victor Olofsson had. It’s just a really quiet, heavy wrist shot. The technique, everything is so effortless for him. I hate to face it (in practice), but it’s great to watch it.”
For a Sabres team that’s lacked secondary scoring for most of the season, Kulich’s emergence has been a welcome development.
1. Even with their three-game winning streak, the Sabres are still in last place in the Eastern Conference based on points percentage. It’s tough to undo the damage of a 13-game winless streak. According to The Athletic’s playoff predictor model, the Sabres have a 4 percent chance to make the playoffs and a 5 percent chance at the No. 1 pick. Only the Red Wings and Canadiens have worse playoff odds in the Eastern Conference. What’s maddening about the Sabres’ current situation is that the rest of the Eastern Conference has been a mess. The Senators are in the second wild-card position and are eight points ahead of the Sabres with a game in hand. That’s a comfortable lead at this point in the season, but you would expect the gap between the Sabres and a playoff spot to be much larger after a 13-game winless skid. A playoff spot has been up for grabs in the conference, but the Sabres have dug too deep a hole to be a serious contender for it.
2. According to The Athletic’s goal differential above average, the Sabres are 19th in the NHL. That’s not as bad as their place in the standings indicates. And in the last three games, the Sabres have looked like a team that should be closer to the middle of the pack in the NHL. Failing to win a game for an entire month means the Sabres need to play at a 109-point pace to get to 92 points.
3. Despite missing eight games due to injury, Rasmus Dahlin has been on the ice for more Sabres goals and expected goals than any other player on the roster. His on-ice expected goal share at five-on-five is 57 percent, the best on the team. That’s accounting for all of the time Dahlin spent playing through injury, too. Now that he’s healthy, Dahlin looks even more worthy of that $11 million cap hit and the “C” on his jersey.
