Skating:
- Straight Line Skating:
Kulich has good straight line speed, but he lacks some aspects of stride efficiency that make me worry about potential issues at higher levels or point to high potential as a skater in the long term if these are ironed out depending on how you decide to look at it. To start, Kulich has decent posture with close to a 90 degree knee bend, and a slight upper body tilt but he doesn’t reach full back leg extension, slowing down his stride recovery and limiting power. That isn’t his biggest shortfall as a skater, his upper body movement takes credit for that. Following his arms through his body will take full advantage of the strong push off power Kulich has. Moving back to the positives, Kulich keeps his stride recovery under the midline of his body, and has a strong push off that creates very valuable acceleration for him.
Jiri Kulich’s top speed was 35.61km/hr in a small sample of Extraliga games this season. A pretty fast top speed. This points to his potential as a skater long term. If he can increase his stride efficiency through more appropriate upper body movement, I could see Kulich being able to have a step on even quicker defenders at the next level with more added strength.
-Lateral And Backwards Skating:
Top speed without the ability to adequately change both direction and speed isn’t very useful. Thankfully Kulich excels in both of these aspects. Not only can he escape pressure through deceleration, he can create acceleration in small areas through his refined edgework which allows him to hold space for a longer period of time. His edgework also allows him to carry speed inside changes of direction instead of being a dead stop and restart player. This gives defenses less time to react. If Kulich can add more simple misdirections in his movement patterns with the puck, he could add so much to his game. Looking at how his edgework has become so effective through a mechanical lense, Kulich gets low and keeps his knees over his toes, tilts his upper body slightly forward creating a low center of gravity and rotates his body into the turn. Getting his ankle low to the ground allows him to shift his weight forcefully onto his front foot and create a seamless stride recovery.
On average, Jiri crosses over about once every 3.1 or so strides. Another very high number that points to how good of a skater Kulich is. If Kulich can leverage this skill with more complex movement patterns, he will be very hard to stop with open space. Even though he doesn’t keep his toes pointed in any direction very long, he usually attacks the defender vertically, making him easier to defend.
Skills:
Stickhandling:
Skill blending stick-handling with great lateral movement is a recipe for success and a major key to Kulich’s success, especially on a team that thrives off the counter attack. He is both complex and quick enough in his movements to create useful space. His puck placement however, holds him back in some regards most noticeably, not being able to shoot or pass well seamlessly in stride, leaving the defenders the ability to play only 1 option when faced against Kulich.
When given space, Kulich excels and this is probably because he is usually deliberate in his movements, but lacks simple changes in direction that would make him more effective. This is not to say that he isn’t an impressive stick handler, in fact he has shown the ability to pull off creative moves at speed that can get past the defender at both the Extraliga level and at the Ivan-Hlinka tournament in August. Rather this is more of a critique on the angle of attack he takes on rush opportunities against higher level opponents, often linear, which, just like his puck placement, limit his ability to express the high level of puck-handling skill he has. Interestingly, when play is more static, Kulich excels in manufacturing the angular advantage through his ability to read pressure, hold space and very smart movement patterns which value the diagonal passes. This makes the defense cover more ground and can often free up a cross crease pass, which have resulted in 3 out of 6 of Kulich’s goals in his Extraliga campaign as of the date of publishing.
Shooting:
Kulich doesn’t showcase his shot in an overly obvious or noticeable way, choosing rather to take many of his shots from very high danger areas. This has led Kulich to shoot at 15.63% this season, an unsustainable amount, even for someone who often prefers to shoot within 8 feet of the goal. What is more impressive is his 5.84 individual scoring chances per 60 (which leads the team) and his +13.4% xG Rel (which is 2nd on the team). With that being said, those stats speak more to his offensive intelligence than his success and potential as a shooter.
Looking at Kulich’s shot, it needs improvement. His upper body mechanics aren’t bad, he keeps his chest and shoulders over the puck he creates some downforce through keeping his hands out but should look to get the bottom hand a little lower to properly create the slingshot motion in his shot.
Lowering his bottom hand isn’t the biggest concern with his shot. That is his lower body mechanics. He lacks consistency in this department. When faced with pressure, instead of maintaining proper form his hip remains stiff when shooting. This means instead of channelling his upper body’s momentum by stepping into his shot, his knees collapse in on themselves, wasting power and hindering accuracy in the shot. This is of serious concern to his potential as a goalscorer, especially as a player who looks to get into highly contested areas before shooting. This should be one of the first things he should look to improve upon.
Offensive Intelligence:
Creating high danger scoring chances is much easier said than done. Being a great skater and stickhandler allows Kulich to create space in high value areas with the puck, maintaining the same positions in high value areas are a testament to his intelligence. Kulich is very much a home plate player, and in these crowded areas it is crucial that he creates angular, instead of straight line passing options to get open.
On the power play or with more sustained offensive zone pressure, Kulich either takes net front duties or plays as the high slot man in what is usually a 1-3-1 setup. He excels in this role, he has very good hand-eye coordination, and his aforementioned movement patterns grants him the ability to be conducive to offense from many different angles. These are repeatable, translatable skills that point to potential offensively.
Puck Protection:
Puck security is something that Kulich values. This is especially noticeable at high speeds on counter attack opportunities. He leans his shoulder and knee forward into the defender to create a barrier between the opposition's stick and the puck. He keeps his upper body tilt, forcing the defender to take a penalty to knock him off balance. With that being said, he has some issues with puck placement. Unlike a lot of players, Kulich keeps the puck extended too far away from him, making it difficult to maintain his body shape.
His puck placement issues aren’t as prevalent when play is static. This is likely because of how he attacks puck protection. His posture is fine, getting low, and leaning himself into the defender, and the defender usually is properly separated from the puck indicating that the age gap of the opponents he is playing against isn’t as big of a factor as one would think, but as the speed of play goes up he ends up losing control of the puck indicating he didn’t have great enough control to begin with.
Perception:
-Tactical Recognitions
Carving out an effective, valuable role with an Extraliga team as a 17 year old is very difficult. In fact Kulich has started the season averaging the highest points per game (min 10 games played) for a U18 player in the last decade, narrowly beating out Carolina Hurricanes forward Martin Necas for the honours. Given his 15.63% shooting percentage, I doubt his output at this high of a level, at least goal scoring wise, is sustainable, but his role with HC Energie Karlovy Vary seems to be very steadily increasing as the season goes on and that in of itself is impressive and worthy of recognition. So far this season, Kulich averaged 12:40 seconds of ice time per game in a desperately needed third line scoring role, with powerplay and even some penalty kill time thrown in. Given his output so far this season, his role has increased ever so slightly as the season has gone on, even averaging 15:42 (+3:02) per game in his last 3 contests.
HC Energie Karlovy Vary have struggled to start the season. Although they currently sit 11th (good enough for a wildcard position) the underlining numbers are less kind. They sit 14th in shot differential allowing 33.40 shots per game and creating 26.95 per game. In contrast to the team, Karlovy’s 3rd line of Kulich, Martin Kohout and Ondrej Beranek has been a bright spot for the team with that line creating a +4.37% shot differential compared to the rest of the team. Part of this is how well they execute the high press that the team plays. Karlovy usually forecheck in a low 2-1-2 formation with defensemen expected to press if pressure isn’t maintained. Because of this, Kulich has had to become both comfortable with an aggressive forecheck and frequent positional interchange.
Speed Perception
Judging from Kulich’s scanning habits, and his ability to recognize valuable plays at speed, one can infer he has a high level of speed perception. It is generally accepted, and backed up by studies that a high scan frequency (scans per second) is linked with higher pass completion and more valuable passes. Although I don’t have an exact scans per second ratio on Jiri Kulich, judging from a subjective “eye test” view, he seems to scan a lot especially preparatory to rush opportunities. This allows him to better find effective movement patterns and make plays quicker.
The main focus in Kulich’s immediate development should be finding consistency in his lower body motion when he shoots, his puck placement when faced with physical pressure and his upper body swing in his straight line stride. With that being said, I believe in Jiri Kulich's long term potential as an NHL forward, and am of the opinion that the evidence supports Kulich being a first round pick in this year’s draft.
Finlay Sherratt November 2021