It took Nikita Gusev a while to adjust to the National Hockey League. He was the best player in the KHL last season so the Devils took a chance and acquired him from the Vegas Golden Knights late in the summer. He as started to live up to the hype over the last few months in the season. He is a pass-first guy but has also shown the ability to score goals as well. He currently has ten on the season right now.
Gusev has double the number of assists as he does goals, but that is not for a lack of talent in the shooting department. His ten goals are tied for fourth on the team. He obviously would need a big stretch of goal scoring late in the year to reach the 20-goal plateau but it is certainly possible over the last 27 games. The key to Gusev scoring goals is being a little bit more selfish with his play. He is a pass-first guy but sometimes he just needs to shoot it.
He plays on a line with Travis Zajac who isn’t doing much offensively this season, but he has elevated the goal-scoring ability of Blake Coleman. If they can reverse rolls a little bit down the stretch, Gusev might find himself at or near the 20 goal mark for the Devils.