Marchenko ready to earn his shot with the Blue Jackets

Everything right now is new for Kirill Marchenko.
The hockey is new. The language is new. The food and culture are new.
All that is part of the deal when high-level hockey prospects from Europe and Russia head to North America. It's a transition in just about every part of life, but the good news is Marchenko appears to be making the best of it.

It's hard not to be drawn to the magnetic Russian with a big personality. He has the enthusiasm and attitude befitting his age of 22 years old, and it's never hard to figure out what kind of mood he's in based on his facial expressions.
That was certainly true after his overtime goal in Sunday's 3-2 win over Toronto, which completed the Blue Jackets' run in the Traverse City prospects tournament and sent the team back to the plane for its return trip to Columbus in good spirits.

The goal showed the kind of talent Marchenko has, as the big-bodied winger took the puck in the neutral zone off a drop feed from Kent Johnson, steamed toward the net and then scored on a wraparound, beating the Toronto goalie to the far post.
Afterward, Marchenko was all smiles after finishing the tournament with a goal in each game.
"I really like to score," he said. "I think I can score even more. I wanted to have more goals because this tournament, it is no NHL. If I score in the NHL, it will be good."
Odds are Marchenko will do just that at some point. A highly touted prospect as a junior player who skated on his fair share of Russian junior national teams, Marchenko was chosen by the Blue Jackets in the second round of the 2018 draft with the 49th overall pick.
All he's done the past two seasons is score 27 goals in 80 games with SKA St. Petersburg in the KHL, and that was with consistent ice time hard to find with his club team for a variety of reasons. While Columbus had to wait a while to see Marchenko head to the capital city, he was ready to head over to North America after his contract expired at the conclusion of last season.
Marchenko arrived in Columbus in time for the team's prospect development camp in July and largely has been in the city since then while training for the upcoming season and getting more and more familiar with Ohio. He's leaned into having former CBJ player and fellow Russian Fedor Tyutin in town, and his wife, Viktoria, also joined for most of the summer.
Off the ice, he's professed comfort with Columbus as time has gone on, and it was the same in Traverse City, where he and the Blue Jackets prospects had time over the four-night stay to enjoy dinner, walk around the town and even hop into Grand Traverse Bay that feeds into Lake Michigan.
"Very good city," Marchenko said on the tournament's last day. "That's Lake Michigan, right? Yesterday I swam a little bit. It was a little bit cold, but that's OK. I like it. No quick life, you know, just relax and go to dinner and hang out with the guys. It was just a good time with the guys, and I'm enjoying the moment."
On the ice, the transition into hockey's highest level began in Traverse City, and Marchenko was impressive. That game-winning goal against the Maple Leafs was his third in three games, and he added two assists in the tournament to finish with five points. While everyone knows the skill is there in his game -- particularly with an impressive shot he's able to get off in traffic and finish from different angles -- Marchenko's biggest adjustment will come to playing on the smaller ice surface consistently.

"It's a new experience for me because I haven't played North American hockey, never played in this tournament," he said. "I'm happy. Good tournament. Very fast-paced the whole time, just zoom, zoom, zoom. People told me it's a very fast game, just be ready for hits and be smart, make quick plays, and I was ready."
Trent Vogelhuber, the Cleveland Monsters head coach who ran the CBJ bench in Traverse City, said he could see Marchenko adapting to the smaller surface as the games went by.
"I think he'd be the first to admit it to you," Vogelhuber said. "Early on in the tournament, the first couple periods of that game, he's processing. And it's a different level of processing because it's physical and the smaller ice and guys are everywhere. It's hard to get used to that.
"I thought he got better at that, and it's something that's not over. You are going to have to do that, and the games are only going to get faster -- hopefully more predictable, but faster. But yeah, he got better over the course of the games, I think."
Marchenko began Blue Jackets camp Thursday on a line with Gus Nyquist and Sean Kuraly, perhaps a signal he'll be looked at as a potential regular when the season begins. There's no guarantee what will happen at the start, but he is thought to be a key part of a bright CBJ future.
"Big time," Vogelhuber said of Marchenko's skill. "He's a workhorse, too. He wants it. He competes on pucks. When he makes a mistake, it's not floating back. He's (mad) and he's getting back there to make up for it. Those are all positive habits, which we are looking for more than executing certain systems at this point. Those will come."