Man of the Week: Marat Khusnutdinov

KHL.ru continues its ‘Man of the Week’ column with Marat Khusnutdinov. The young forward is now one of the key players for the league-leading team – SKA St. Petersburg.

With a four-point performance, Marat Khusnutdinov was the best player on ice on Saturday, when SKA thrashed Torpedo in Nizhny Novgorod with a 6:2 score. That’s not a bad feat, considering that the center was born only in 2002 and that several established players compete with him for a roster spot. However, Khusnutdinov is currently playing on SKA’s top line with masters like Nikita Gusev and Dmitrij Jaskin, and he has finally found a nice scoring touch that he was a bit lacking in the start of the season. The 20-years-old forward had a striking performance against Torpedo, with a hat-trick of assists – including helping Nikita Gusev netting the game-winner – and the 6:1 goal in the middle of the third period. Khusnutdinov is currently the top scorer among all U21 players in the league, trailing only Severstal’s Alexander Suvorov in goals scored – not a tragedy, considering his playmaking abilities and playing style.

Early years

Marat Khusnutdinov was born in Moscow on Jul 17, 2002. He started playing aged four, and he was a member of the White Bears team, the same school that brought to hockey players like Nikita Kucherov, Nikita Gusev, and Igor Ozhiganov. Khusnutdinov’s first coach was Gennady Kurdin. “I have to thank him because he taught me how to use my smarts in my game. He had us making so many drills, and now I can take good and creative decisions,” he told KHL.ru in 2021.

As many other older coaches, Kurdin always asked his players to play other sports to develop a fresher mind. “We often played football and basketball. Also, we played a lot of handball. The playing court there is not as big as in football. It’s helpful to develop your arms, having your legs running, and your mind has to work hard to find a way.” Despite being successful even in other sports, however, Khusnutdinov never thought about a change. “I always had excellent results in any sport, but hockey always was the number one for me. I never even thought about it. I still enjoy basketball and football, but it’s just entertainment.”

Moving up the ranks

After the White Bears, Khusnutdinov and Kurdin moved to Vityaz. He played so many seasons there, until 2019. In 2018, the duo helped Vityaz winning the Championship of Russia among U16 teams, and in the same year he started playing for the Russian national team. He was successful right away on the international stage, and he was called up to represent his country at the 2019 U18 WJC in Sweden. The Russians returned home with a silver medal after losing the finals to the hosts in OT. Khusnutdinov collected two assists that night, but it wasn’t enough. After the tournament, he transferred from Vityaz to SKA.

In his first year in St. Petersburg, he played exclusively in the JHL with SKA-1946, then he had his KHL debut in the next campaign. In 2020-2021, Khusnutdinov lined up in 12 contests for SKA, recording two helpers. Fast forward a year later, he’s a different player. “I played with different speeds on my first season. I had my debut, I played a few games, then I picked up an injury,” he explains. “As I was healing it, I spent a lot of time with analytics. I had an excellent chance to study and understand my game better. I started the pre-season camp with a different mindset. I tried to improve my game in any aspect. When I was injured — especially so in the first month — I had nothing to do. I studied how I could improve my game on offense and defense. I watched a lot of games, and I followed SKA during the playoffs.”

Path to stardom

“I think that SKA has the best system overall in Russia,” Khusnutdinov explained his decision. “It helps players developing to their fullest. Moving to St. Petersburg was the right thing to do.” Vasily Podkolzin’s example — he also moved from Vityaz to SKA — helped him make a decision. “We long talked about SKA and its system. This definitely pushed me toward St. Petersburg.” He also explained why he decided to leave Vityaz and move to a bigger club. “The best thing to do to keep on developing is getting out of your comfort zone. Moreover, there’s plenty of things here with SKA that I couldn’t take advantage of with Vityaz. Development coaches, trainers, for example. I’m not even starting to talk about the Hockey City complex. I think that everyone understands that there’s no other similar facility in Russia.”

In 2021-2022 Khusnutdinov totalled 12 (5+7) points for SKA, and was one of the nominations for the Alexei Cherepanov Award for the best rookie of the season – but Avangard’s Arseny Gritsyuk was the final recipient. That just motivated Khusnutdinov, who in the meantime won gold with Russia at the 2019 Hlinka Gretzky Cup and was drafted by the Minnesota Wild in the 2020 NHL Entry draft. Currently, the sharp-minded forward is one of the keys for Roman Rotenberg’s lineup and has a fantastic chance to play a prominent role in a contender for the Gagarin Cup title. Definitely not something that happens every day for a mere 20-years-old boy.