With his smooth skating and a lethal howitzer of a shot, Russian forward and 2019 New Jersey Devils draft pick Arseny Gritsyuk has quickly won over fans in Newark in the early goings of the 2025 NHL preseason. “Grits” joins the organization at a time when depth scoring is desperately needed, and GM Tom Fitzgerald and his staff are hopeful he can help fill that void. Gritsyuk is coming off a strong season with the KHL’s SKA St. Petersburg, where he tallied 17 goals and 27 assists in 49 games.
Throughout training camp and the opening two preseason games, Gritsyuk has been slotted on the Devils’ fourth line, centered by Juho Lammikko. Still, it’s worth wondering whether he’ll get a look in the middle six as the preseason progresses. Ultimately, though, one key question remains: what is a fair expectation for Gritsyuk in his first NHL season, and can recent KHL imports provide any precedent to help set that bar?
We all remember where we were when the Devils tweeted that GIF of a goose before the 2019–20 season began, and there was palpable buzz surrounding Nikita Gusev’s New Jersey debut. After a rocky start, he settled in and recorded 44 points in 66 games, flashing the skill that made him such a sought-after KHL star. However, his production proved difficult to sustain, mostly due to poor skating (although the COVID stoppage did him no favors) and his time in the NHL was short-lived. Gusev’s trajectory serves as a cautionary reminder that KHL imports often need time to adjust, and not every player makes the transition seamlessly.
While Gusev represents one extreme potential outcome, the other side of the coin? Well…that would be Kirill Kaprizov. Perhaps the best modern example of a KHL player making the jump across the Atlantic, Kaprizov joined the Minnesota Wild in 2020–21 and instantly became a franchise cornerstone. He produced 27 goals and 51 points in just 55 games, earning the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year. Kaprizov’s creativity, skating, and finishing ability demonstrated that elite KHL talent can translate into immediate stardom at the NHL level, and since then, Kirill the Thrill has only further blossomed into one of the league’s best players.
Now, I’m not suggesting that Arseny Gritsyuk is destined to become either a Kaprizov-level superstar or follow in Gusev’s footsteps with a brief, uneven NHL stint. The reality is that there’s plenty of middle ground between those two outcomes.
Kirill Marchenko offers one such example. In his 2022–23 rookie season with Columbus, Marchenko scored 21 goals in just 59 games, but added only 4 assists, carving out a reputation as a pure finisher rather than a play-driving forward. He wasn’t a franchise-changer like Kaprizov, nor did he fade quickly like Gusev — instead, he established himself as a reliable scoring threat in a defined role. I think, perhaps, somebody like Marchenko could serve as a realistic goal for what Devils fans can expect from Gritsyuk this season.
Another comparison could be Andrei Kuzmenko, who joined the Vancouver Canucks in 2022 and exploded for 39 goals and 74 points in 81 games. While not quite on Kaprizov’s generational level, Kuzmenko proved that a skilled KHL scorer can quickly thrive in the NHL when given the right opportunities, particularly on the power play and in a top-six role.
Ultimately, the range of outcomes for Arseny Gritsyuk is wide, as is often the case with players making the leap from the KHL to the NHL. Whether he trends closer to a specialized role like Marchenko, flourishes in the right situation like Kuzmenko, or even faces bumps in the road like Gusev, the key for the Devils will be patience and proper deployment. What’s certain is that Gritsyuk brings skill, speed, and intrigue to a lineup that desperately needs an injection of secondary scoring — and that alone makes his rookie season one of the most compelling storylines to follow in Newark.
