Thought he would return for another season, but I am ok with this move. Probably needs another season at least in the AHL, but his size and skating ability is there already. Just needs to get a lot of games in now, so I think developmentally it makes a lot of sense here. Undersized players, or players that need a lot more development time really benefit from a long NCAA experience, but I don't think Kuznetsov is one of those.
Really looking forward to how he develops. I see him being a minute-munching top 4 defencemen you can use in all situations - not too much of an offensive ceiling (but who knows?), but already seems to have strong gap control and willing to engage physically. Terrible World Juniors overall IMO, but he is young.
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