"You brought in a coach that didn't fit the style," Kuznetsov said he told the Capitals general manager with regard to Laviolette.
Washington Capitals center Evgeny Kuznetsov is back in D.C. and said confidently on Thursday that he is in a much better headspace than last year and kept the focus on starting over with new head coach and a "perfect match" in Spencer Carbery. However, in a new Russian podcast appearance, he chose to open up more about what went wrong with ex-coach Peter Laviolette.
Kuznetsov joined Slippery Ice to discuss the reports of a trade request and apparent tension between him and the organization, and he admitted that there was a discussion between him and general manager Brian MacLellan a potential change in scenery during his exit interview.
"We sat down with [MacLellan] and talked; after the season, you come and talk for an hour. We talked like, 'Well, let's try to change the situation for better so that you'd be better off,' and I'd be better off, and I wouldn't feel like I'm an extra on the team," Kuznetsov revealed on the show, which was transcribed by sports.ru and translated by DeepL. "There was no such thing as 'We would have won if you had played better.'"
Kuznetsov then said that he told MacLellan during the meeting that Laviolette's coaching style didn't allow him to play his brand of hockey as his production took a hit. The 31-year-old had 55 points in 81 games for his lowest points-per-game rate in nearly a decade, while his shooting percentage plummeted to an all-time low of seven percent. He also said that "a lot of bad thoughts" built up and there were mental roadblocks to overcome as well.
"I said, 'You brought in a coach who didn't fit the style... you paid me this money for something, right? For what I was doing well,'" Kuznetsov said. "And now I come here, they tell me, 'Listen, you don't have to do that; put the puck in the zone, skate and screen the goalie.'
"That's where it all went wrong because everyone has their own role, everyone has to fulfill their role and everyone will be asked to fulfill that role," he added, also saying, "I've had the notion always in hockey that every hockey player has certain roles and he uses his strengths. And he's required to do that, right? But here, we kind of moved away from that whole vision. That's probably why we got such a result."
The Capitals finished second-to-last in the Metropolitan Division, and man-games lost and inconsistency down the stretch resulted in the team missing out on the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2014.
"That's my personal opinion [that there was misuse]," Kuznetsov said of Laviolette's style. "It's clear that maybe I'm wrong, maybe it's wrong... I think we could have done something with [our] centers: more in the middle, try to hold onto the puck. But we did everything simple: get [it] to the red line and run.
"Even now, I don't understand how we played in the defensive zone," Kuznetsov added later.
When hosts Andrey Nikolishin, Denis Kazansky and Sergey Gimaev Jr. pointed out that it was "old school" hockey, Kuznetsov responded: "I don't know... if it's a school at all."
On the morning after the team's regular-season finale against the New Jersey Devils, Laviolette met with MacLellan, and the two decided to mutually part ways. Laviolette then became the head coach of the New York Rangers, while MacLellan brought in Carbery, who Kuznetsov is already forming a strong relationship with.
"He's a great person. I feel like the way he sees hockey, it's perfect match for me... he wants to control the game, he wants to hold onto the puck, I'm a big fan of that," Kuznetsov said on Thursday, adding, "There's a lot of positivity in my head when I talk to him. The most important: he was very honest with me, and I was very honest with him, too."
"I'm hoping he, along with the rest of our guys, that he's energized by a little bit of a different philosophy, a new, young coach that's enthusiastic," MacLellan added of Kuznetsov.