Evgeny Kuznetsov trashes his own team and the Capitals are pissed off

It’s been complicated between forward Evgeny Kuznetsov and the Washington Capitals. There were talks that the Russian forward wanted out and was hoping to get traded elsewhere as his agent previously mentioned how Kuznetsov was not having fun with the Capitals anymore, especially under then-coach Peter Laviolette.

Kuznetsov could have started anew this summer, especially now that he’ll be playing under new head coach Spencer Carbery, but instead, he chose to rummage through the past and say in an interview with Slippery Ice, co-hosted by former Capital Andre Nikolishin, that he feels like the players who want out of Washington are stuck there, while the ones that want to stay are being pushed out.

This led Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek to analyze Kuznetsov’s comments and reveal the mess it has created in the Capitals’ dressing room.

“I’ll say this, I don’t think Washington is very happy at all,” said Friedman. “They don’t think the comments about Laviolette needed to be made. The one thing I’ll say here is if you are going to talk like this you have to have a big year. Kuznetsov has to deliver right now. He has to go out and he has to have a massive season. In 2018, when they won the Stanley Cup, Ovechkin deserved the Conn Smythe, but if you would have told me Kuznetsov would have gotten it, I would have had no problem with that. He was an elite player. You could argue the second best player on the team that year when they won the Stanley Cup in the playoffs. He has to be that player now.”

In the Russian interview, Kuznetsov really ripped into the Capitals and thanks to the Russian Machine Never Breaks, who translated it to English, Friedman revealed more things that were said that angered the organization.

“Not only that, he rips the Players’ Association for not standing up for him when the NHL called him in over the videos of drug usage. He says that Bill Daly wanted a 20-game suspension and the Players’ Association didn’t offer a defense for him when they promised him to. He also laughs at one of his teammates, Alexander Alexeyev, for signing a multi-year extension with the Capitals when he said, ‘they are going to bring in other defenseman and you’re going to get buried.’ And now there are a couple of other defensemen there so Alexeyev is going to have to battle for a top-six spot. They brought in Sandin obviously on the left side and they brought in Joel Edmundson on the left side. There were a whole bunch of different things here. It wasn’t just the comments about Laviolette.”

Friedman however believes that the ship has sailed on trying to trade Kuznetsov out of Washington and it remains to be seen how the relationship will unfold for the upcoming season.

As Friedman puts it, we have to appreciate that Kuznetsov isn’t being boring in interviews, but sometimes, a filter on some thoughts could be necessary…

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