How Do You Solve A Problem Like Kuznetsov?
How do the Caps fix a guy and make him play?
Earlier this week I provided a thumbnail sketch about the upcoming Washington Capitals season and their prospects for success. At the time, I identified that the key challenge for new head coach Spencer Carbery was getting more production out of enigmatic center Evegeny Kuznetsov. Looking back this week, it’s clear now that I should have dived into additional detail about the skilled and outspoken Russian.
If you look back at Washington’s 2018 Stanley Cup playoff run, it’s easy to make the case that it was Kuznetsov, and not left wing Alexander Ovechkin, who should have flown home to Russia that summer with the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.
In that playoff year, it was Kuznetsov and not Ovechkin who was the leading point getter, and better still, provided the most critical goal in the history of the franchise when he scored against the hated Pittsburgh Penguins in overtime of Game Six of their second round playoff series.1
Every time I watch that goal I can literally feel demons being exorcised.
But ever since that playoff, it’s been downhill for Kuznetsov. His production declined under both head coach Todd Reirden and his successor, Peter Laviolette. As last season wound down to a disappointing conclusion and veteran players were auctioned off ahead of the trade deadline, it became clear the Kuznetsov was unhappy and word leaked out that he was seeking a trade.
As the great Ken Dryden wrote in his seminal work on life in the National Hockey League, The Game, trades are essentially an exchange of misfit toys. For one reason or another, things haven’t worked out for a player who came to the team with the burden of high expectations, so the general manager goes looking for a trade partner who believes that a change in scenery and a second chance might revive a career.
But the NHL of the late 1970s that saw the end of Dryden’s career is not the NHL of today. The salary cap constrains all team’s equally, rendering a contract like the one that Kuznetsov has an unreasonable burden, at least not one a team is willing to take on in exchange for a more or less equal talent. So while there were was talk of a potential deal with the Nashville Predators, there were no takers for the 31-year old Kuznetsov and his $7.8 million salary hit.
So come training camp, Kuznetsov was still here. Granted, when he speaks with the English language press, he’s said all of the right things. But when it comes to the Russian-language media, Kuznetsov was as blunt as he could be. Thanks to the Capitals fan site Russian Machine Never Breaks, we have an English translation of an interview that Kuznetsov gave to Slippery Ice where he:
Confirmed that he would have been happy with a trade and said of the deal that sent defenseman Dmitry Orlov to Boston, “It feels like in this organization those who want to be there are kicked out and those who don’t want to be there are left behind.”
Said that former head coach Laviolette didn’t fit the team’s style;
Detailed conversations with the NHL about his suspension for cocaine use and chided the National Hockey League Players Association for a lack of support;
Warned defenseman Alex Alexeyev that the Caps would bury him as their seventh defenseman if he re-signed with the team. Subsequently, the Caps signed defenseman Joel Edmunson, pushing Alexeyev down the depth chart again.2
As Elliote Friedman noted earlier this week on his 32 Thoughts podcast, it would be hypocritical for a journalist to take a player to task for answering questions honestly. After all, that’s exactly what reporters are looking for from athletes who are often chary to utter anything even slightly off-key. But as Friedman also noted, Carbery, General Manager Brian MacLellan and the team’s PR staff can’t be too happy about it.
Which leads me back to the doubts I expressed earlier this week about Kuznetsov being able to turn things around. I think he’s very unhappy and would probably be fine if he left North America forever and played the rest of his career back in Russia. As Friendman has noted, he’s said as much in the past.
Unlike his teammate, winger Anthony Mantha, who is on an expiring contract, Kuznetsov, whose contract doesn’t expire until the end of the 2024-25 NHL season, has options. That doesn’t mean he won’t be able to turn things around, it just means that I doubt that he has sufficient motivation.
And if he doesn’t, it will be a long NHL season in D.C.
A 1986 overtime goal by Dale Hunter in Game Seven of a playoff series vs the Philadelphia Flyers and a 1998 overtime goal by Joe Juneau against the Buffalo Sabres in Game Six of the Eastern Conference Finala are the other two landmark strikes.
A hand injury will sideline Edmundson for 4-6 weeks, so it looks like young Alexeyev will get a chance to prove his worth while Edmunson heals.