In an interview with Tatyana Kokorina of sovsport.ru, Capitals center Evgeny Kuznetsov says he expects to be back in Washington next week. 

Speaking at a charity hockey game, Kuznetsov was nostalgic about his hometown, saying “This is my home, where I was raised, where I grew up. Although they say that no one owes anything to anyone, I believe that I owe a little to the Chelyabinsk school.” More on the charity game here.

As he has done several times over the course of the summer, Kuznetsov responded to questions about Washington’s playoff struggles.  “The best team on paper doesn’t always win,” said Kuznetsov, and while “it’s hard to lose friends on the team … if you look at the teams that won the Stanley Cup, they always had two to three young players,” which has not been the case for the Capitals in recent years.

Asked to predict how many points he would score this season, Kuznetsov said, “It does not matter to me. The main thing is that the team get into the playoffs, and we’ll move on. If I only wanted to score, I would go to another sport.”

Asked about playing with fellow Russian Alex Ovechkin, Kuznetsov said “It’s nice to play with Sasha, we quickly find a common language … [which] always helps on the ice.”

The KHL season  starts up on Monday with SKA (St. Petersburg) playing CSKA (Moscow), a matchup of two of the league’s top teams.  “I would like to catch a couple of matches,” Kuzy said, “but Traktor (Kuznetsov’s former KHL team) will play on the road.

You can access the complete interview here.

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