- Kuznetsov says Todd Reirden asked him to play with more aggression in 2019-20
- He tried to lay out Alexander Kerfoot on the first shift and crashed into the boards instead
- Read below for the full story and video of the painful Capitals moment
Evgeny Kuznetsov has a six-week reminder that aggression is not always rewarded.
The former Capitals center revisited a forgotten low point in his career during a recent interview on KHL club Salavat Yulaev’s VK channel. Kuznetsov said then-Capitals head coach Todd Reirden had asked him to play with more aggression in 2019-20, per RMNB. The 33-year-old took it to heart in a way he immediately regretted.
“A new coach came in and said he needed more aggression from me on the ice,” Kuznetsov said. “The day before the game, I thought: that’s it, I’m a Canadian. I run out onto the ice, thinking I need to hit someone. I see some gnome skating with a puck. His name is (Alexander) Kerfoot. I wanted to skate towards him from the side, but then the whistle blew.”
That whistle came on the first shift of an October 29, 2019 road game in Toronto. Kerfoot got tangled with Dmitry Orlov’s stick and crumpled to the ice. Kuznetsov, already steaming toward him, had nowhere to go.
“I’d already picked up speed, but that bastard just dipped a bit before impact,” Kuznetsov said. “I crashed into the side of the boards and broke everything on the first shift, my shoulder, my nose, my neck. I couldn’t move for six weeks after that.”
Here is the play:
Trainer Jason Serbus walked Kuznetsov off the ice and back to the locker room. He returned later in the period, finished the game, and the Capitals won 4-3 in overtime. Alex Ovechkin had four points and the OT winner.
Watch the full highlights from that night in Toronto:
The crash did not cost Kuznetsov any games right away. He played 63 of 69 contests during the COVID-shortened season. The hit numbers tell the rest of the story. Kuznetsov averaged 1.86 hits per game that year and never topped 1.85 again across the rest of his NHL career, bottoming out at 0.74 per game in 2023-24.
Reirden was fired the following offseason. Kuznetsov is now suiting up for Salavat Yulaev in the KHL, where he keeps telling old Capitals stories nobody asked for and somehow making them better with each one.
