A little more than two weeks have passed since the start of the regular season of the National Hockey League, during which certain trends have already formed.

If the newcomers Kirill Kaprizov and Alexander Romanov immediately began to justify the advances given to them, and Artemy Panarin, Alexander Ovechkin and Andrey Svechnikov continued to demonstrate high performance, then a number of hockey players had a crumpled start to the championship.

Evgeny Malkin is still unable to reach the usual level of productivity, Evgeny Dadonov is experiencing difficulties with adaptation in Ottawa, and Igor Shesterkin and Ilya Sorokin do not justify the title of one of the main contenders for the Calder Trophy.

Malkin and Gusev's problems

At the moment, one of the most criticized domestic players is Evgeni Malkin.

In the first three regular season matches, the three-time Stanley Cup winner did not score a single point, which has never happened to him in his overseas career.

In the next four, he managed to slightly improve the performance and score a goal and two passes, but in terms of utility he dropped to third place from the bottom among compatriots.

In his presence, the Penguins conceded three more goals than they scored.

Suffice it to recall at least the last meeting with the Rangers, in which the Russian was involved in both goals of the opponent.

First, he lost the fight at the side and could not prevent Colin Blackwell from excelling, and then he did not have time to cover Ryan Strome.

Malkin's problems are mainly due to two factors.

The first is his imperfect physical shape and not the highest speed, which was noted by two-time Olympic champion Igor Kravchuk.

He suggested that the attacker should comply with modern trends in North American hockey and "become a little easier."

Another reason is uncertainty with link partners.

Eugene spent his first five matches with Jason Zucker and Brian Rust, but later Mike Sullivan began to shuffle combinations.

As a result, the Russian also managed to play with Jared McCan and Kasperi Kapanen.

And although so far none of the experiments has turned out to be 100% successful, some positive moments can already be noted.

In the confrontation with Boston, Malkin scored an assist and for the second time this season finished the meeting with a positive indicator of usefulness ("+1").

True, it is still difficult to say whether this is due to successful rearrangements in the links or a gradual set of forms, or is simply a fortunate coincidence.

We can only state the fact that Evgeniy is gaining only 0.43 points per game on average, which clearly does not correspond to his level.

As for Gusev, many experts predicted in advance that this season promises to be even more difficult for him than the previous one.

Fears were associated with the arrival of Lindy Ruff on the coaching bridge, famous for his exactingness to the charges, as well as his bet on more power hockey.

This is not very suitable for the technical and inventive, but not the most physically powerful Nikita, who prefers to hold the puck rather than rush around the court.

At the same time, it is not yet possible to reproach the coaching staff with excessive distrust of Gusev.

Yes, the Russian is not among the leaders of the team in terms of the amount of playing time (14 minutes 35 seconds on average per match, the seventh result among forwards), but he consistently comes out in the second or third links with not the weakest partners.

So, his permanent partner is the central striker Pavel Zaha, and Andreas Junson and Nicholas Merkley managed to mark on the right.

Difficulties with the adaptation of Dadonov and Namestnikov

Unlike their compatriots, the problems of these hockey players are due to the recent change of registration.

In the fall, a number of Russians signed agreements with new clubs, but mostly they still cannot find themselves in a new place.

But if the same Nikita Zadorov and Vladislav Namestnikov do not claim to be the leading players in their teams, then the same cannot be said about Evgeny Dadonov.

In the fall, the former Florida forward was considered one of the most coveted players on the market.

The authoritative publication The Score put him in fourth place in the ranking of free agents, and the portals TSN and Sportsnet - even in second.

It is all the more surprising that in the end Dadonov chose one of the weakest teams in the last season - Ottawa.

Perhaps the financial side of the issue played a role.

Evgeny's salary was $ 5 million a year, which made him the fourth highest paid hockey player in the club.

Only goalkeeper Matt Murray ($ 6.25 million), forward Derek Stepan ($ 6.5 million) and defender Tom Shabo ($ 8 million) earn more.

However, while Dadonov has not yet begun to justify the hopes placed on him.

After seven meetings in his asset is listed only two points (1 + 1), and the indicator of usefulness is already familiar "-3".

In the absence of the support of one of the main stars, the Senators feel extremely insecure.

At the moment, Ottawa have only one victory in seven meetings and are ranked last in the NHL pivot table.

Even the four-game fewer Carolina, Florida and Dallas scored more points.

As for Zadorov and Namestnikov, they do not look too bright so far, but in both cases it seems more explainable.

Nikita himself was never famous for his attacking skills and never scored more than 20 points in a season, and there was no reason to count on a stormy start at Chicago.

The team begins to enter the stage of restructuring, which negatively affects both its results in general and the performance of its individual representatives, in particular.

Roughly the same can be said about Namestnikov, with the only difference being that in Detroit the process of returning to its former heights was noticeably delayed.

The team does not yet have the necessary reserves in order to regularly achieve success, and Vladislav is unlikely to be able to change this state of affairs.

In seven games, he scored just one pass.

Sorokin's unsuccessful start and Shesterkin's instability

On the eve of the current championship, high expectations were also associated with the performance of a number of Russian goalkeepers.

This mainly concerned Igor Shesterkin and Ilya Sorokin, who were among the main contenders for the Calder Trophy according to The Athletic.

Moreover, the gate guard "Rangers" had a certain advantage, because unlike his compatriot, he had already tried his hand at the overseas league.

Last season, he played 12 matches and, although he missed 29 times, he earned excellent reviews from both specialists and fans.

Everything went to the fact that the start of the current championship would be successful for Shesterkin.

The legendary Henrik Lundqvist left New York, which automatically made the Russian the main goalkeeper of the Rangers.

But so far he has not been able to take full advantage of his chance.

The team suffered defeats in all three meetings, in which he went out on the ice from the first minutes, and victories were obtained only with the help of his replacement, Alexander Georgiev.

Of course, the Rangers' troubles cannot be blamed solely on Shesterkin.

Often the defenders of the team do not help, but only interfere with the goalkeeper.

Suffice it to recall Ryan Lindgren's own goal in the recent confrontation with Pittsburgh.

Nevertheless, this season New Yorkers allow opponents to make almost ten shots less than in the previous one (25.8 - 34.0), which indicates work in this direction.

Sorokin was not lucky enough to be on the same team with the excellently performing Semyon Varlamov.

The experienced goalkeeper caught the courage and did not concede a single goal in 142 minutes, which was the eighth longest dry streak at the start of the NHL regular season.

Taking into account the inspirational play of the Russian, there is no longer any doubt about his status as the first issue.

At the same time, Sorokin had a chance to attract the attention of the coaching staff.

On the eve of the second game of the season, Varlamov was injured in the warm-up, and therefore the ex-goalkeeper of CSKA turned out to be the basis.

However, the debut turned out to be extremely unsuccessful.

The Islanders lost 0-5 in the Rangers derby, and Ilya saved just 19 of 23 shots.

It took more than a week to wait for a second chance, but the result of the match against New Jersey was also disappointing (0: 2).