Photo: Patrick McDermott
Evgeny Kuznetsov continued his fantastic year Saturday night as the Capitals topped the Colorado Avalanche 7-3 in a wild game at Verizon Center. The Russian dynamo had two assists and a goal for his fourth career three point game.
“It just looks easy,” Kuznetsov said after the offensive onslaught was over. “It’s not easy to play against these guys. This team is dangerous team.”
It may not have been easy, but it was pretty. First, Kuzy fed the puck to Jason Chimera, who set up Justin Williams for a strike from the far circle. Less than seven minutes later, Kuznetsov made a brilliant pass from below the goal line, putting the puck on a tee for John Carlson, who scored. At the tail end of the first, Kuznetsov got the puck to Nate Schmidt for his first goal of the season, though the Verizon Center scorers somehow decided Schmidt did everything completely by himself. Finally, Kuznetsov drove to the net on the power play, deflecting a pass from Chimera for the game’s fifth goal.
“I just scored a goal and that’s all I need to do,” Kuznetsov said, explaining nothing. His coach, however, had praise for the 23-year-old Russian.
“Kuzy will go to the net,” Barry Trotz said. “When you go to the net hard you create space. It’s something that’s very important offensively for any team.”
Kuznetsov finished with three shots on net in 17:46 of ice time. He had only one blemish, which came when he covered the puck with his hand and put the Capitals down a man in the second period. But he made up for it with an excellent quote.
“I didn’t know this rule about my penalty and I apologize to team,” Kuznetsov said. “Bad play by me. Can’t do like that. Next time I do better.”
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