"It just kind of happened. I was at the right time at the right place," Kaprizov said, via translator Ilya Kravtchouk. " It could have really happened to any other teammate of mine. But I was fortunate enough to be at the right place at the right time."
Needless to say, the night didn't start out as smoothly for him.
About 20 minutes before heading to the rink from the hotel, Kaprizov realized that his tie wasn't tied. So nervous before the game, he couldn't figure out how to tie it, which meant a frantic call to Andrew Heydt, the team's Director of Team Services.
Heydt arrived and got him squared away, getting his game-day routine off without any more hiccups.
"I told him that he's going to have to do that every game," Kaprizov said. "But to be honest I didn't even untie it. I'm just going to leave it tied up from now on."
The garment fiasco ended up being a footnote in history.
He became just the second Wild player in history to post two points in his NHL debut when he dished out the primary helper on Victor Rask's goal early in the third period.
He became the first to post a three-point debut with his overtime winner.
Needless to say, Kaprizov certainly met -- and exceeded -- expectations from nearly everyone around him, including fans, media and teammates.
But Evason insists that those expectations don't exist for him as his coach. At least not in terms of production.
"I don't know what the expectations are. Who's expectations? We've said from Day 1, and communicated to him, there are no expectations," Evason said. "We don't have expectations of him leading the league in scoring. We're not asking him to put up this total number or whatever. We're asking him to come in and be a good teammate and work hard. That's our expectation as an organization and we know and feel if he does that he will give himself an opportunity to have success. But most importantly he'll give his team an opportunity to have success. That's our expectation as an organization and from what we've seen of him so far it looks like that's what his are as well."
It's the things Kaprizov does away from the puck that set him up to post the stellar offensive night. And while the fancy goals have dominated the social media posts and the highlight clips fans have seen of Kaprizov during his time in the KHL, Evason said he and the coaching staff spent plenty of time also looking at his game in the defensive end and with the puck not on his tape.
And while few could have predicted a three-point game in his NHL debut, one of the things Evason did expect was what he saw from Kaprizov in all the other areas of his game.
He's good there too.
"We sat down and watched his entire shifts from several games and yes it was impressive what he did on the power play or scoring," Evason said. "But we mentioned this prior to the bubble what we like is his compete level. He went into the corner he'd come out with pucks more often than not. So we expected that guy and he hasn't disappointed."
Kaprizov said his family watched the game from Russia, which started at 10 a.m. local time back home. He returned to his phone after the game to a bunch of congratulatory texts and plenty of support.
But by the next morning, Kaprizov said he had already shifted his focus. The three-point debut was nice, and so was the win, but there's a rematch on Saturday night against these same Kings.
The Wild will try and improve to 2-0-0 for the first time since 2015-16.
"For me it's really about the next game. I can't think about it too much because tomorrow is already the next game and we really need to focus on that," Kaprizov said. "Overall, I felt great to get all the congratulations and everyone is extremely happy.
"But it's just one game. It's just the first game and there's a lot of other games for him to focus on."
Related:
- He's a keeper: Kaprizov dazzles with three-point night in NHL debut
