Kuznetsov gave The Post a 30-minute interview, but a lot of interesting tidbits didn’t make the story. They all illustrate how fun-loving a person Kuznetsov is, which is what made his admission of temporarily losing the joy in his game so surprising. Here are the highlights:

Kuznetsov was mic’d up by NHL.com for Russia’s game against Team North America at the World Cup of Hockey. When a linesman skated over to the Russian bench to inform players that North America is changing its goalie. Kuznetsov responded with his steak preferences (medium rare filet).

AD

AD

Kuznetsov: “I already talked with that ref before, last year. My faceoffs not going well, and I had probably lost like four in a row. I’m just kind of trying to talk to him, and I see he’s so impressive. He’s so, like, concentrated on the game, so I’m just trying to make fun with him a little bit. I tell him a couple different words, and I see he starts smiling. Then he kind of relax more and give you more, like, appreciated on the faceoff and give me a little bit cheat. That’s kind of part of hockey; you have to be nice with the referees. They’re people, too. They’re trying to do his job nice always, but it’s hard. People can skate pretty fast, and hockey is fast right now.

“Sometimes, you need to talk to the ref, not only yell at him or trying to teach him. He never teach me how to play the hockey, right? That’s what I have to do. If I want to talk to him, he will understand why I came and why try to talk to him because they all know hockey. He knows I want to talk about faceoff, but I’m not going to talk about faceoff. I’m trying to talk about the first thing that come into my mind. He starts smiling, and kind of next faceoff, he saw me and is relaxing, you know? That’s when we’re have fun and they’re having fun and people are going to have fun. Just makes good atmosphere on the ice, and that’s when you can play good.”

Khurshudyan: You told him there’s no baked potatoes in Russia, but potatoes are in every Russian food.

AD

AD

Kuznetsov: “In restaurant, there’s no baked potato. We talk about the restaurant food because when you came to steakhouse, there’s no baked potato. That’s why when I came here the first time, Ovi ordered a baked potato, and I’m like, ‘What?’ When they bring it and put the butter and sour cream and little bit bacon, I tried that. Now, I’m every time when I’m at a steakhouse, I always eat that. Now, I tried the sweet potato. It’s something new for me, too.”

Kuznetsov said he worked out with Pavel Datsyuk’s trainer this summer. Datsyuk, a longtime center for the Red Wings, recently retired and is now playing in Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League.

Kuznetsov: “Probably like never worked liked that. It’s completely different. But it’s more fun. I’ll tell you a little story. We worked like 10 days in a row, and I say, ‘Hey, when are we going to have days off?’ He said, ‘Pavel never get day off.’ I go, ‘Oh, okay.’ I know it’s true. He say, ‘Oh, day off? Yeah, we’ll go to the beach and we’ll walk and run and do something different. That’s a day off. We play soccer.’ ‘No, I want day off.’ ‘Oh, well, Pavel never takes the day off.’ It’s kind of fun, but if you hear Pavel, 35 years old, never gets the day off, you don’t have to take it, too. We work nice and friendly and he teach me a lot. He give me lots of good stories about Pavel, about other guys, and that’s a fun time.”

AD

AD

Khurshudyan: What else did you try to learn from Datsyuk?

Kuznetsov: “I just worked with him in the World Cup because in the summer, he was on the team with CSKA [Moscow]. But I know lots of stories from other guys about him, what he did and how he changed. It’s hard to explain. If you have somebody who knows him pretty well, you should talk to them about him. They will give you lots of good stories. The first thing in my head about him is that he’s a nice person, like a professional. That’s what you have to learn about him. …

“It’s pretty hard to talk about serious things with Pavel. He never going to talk about serious stuff. He always make the joke, but then you have to understand that it’s means something. This joke means something for you. You have to just understand. Because the first time that you see him, he will say something, and it’s kind of like you don’t understand, but then I started understanding. This joke means I have to go do this and this, so you have to spend some time with him.”

AD

AD

The first time Kuznetsov ever spoke to Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin was the night he got drafted by Washington. The first time he actually met him was when Ovechkin came to his wedding.

Kuznetsov: “We talked on the phone, but then we have the same friends. We just kind of talked, and I just called him and was like, ‘Can you come with the friends?’ Because my wedding was lots of people. He said right away, ‘Yes, of course.’ He’d been one week in my hometown, so that’s fun time.”

Khurshudyan: Were you surprised he came?

Kuznetsov: “A little bit, yeah, because right away, he said, ‘Yeah. Why not? For sure. It’s summertime.’ ‘Oh, okay.’ I know that people in my hometown, as soon as they going to know Ovi coming, they like crazy. They never see people like that in my hometown.”

AD

Khurshudyan: What’d your parents say?

AD

Kuznetsov: “They say, ‘Cool. We’re going to have some picture with him.’ But they were just a little bit nervous because of the wedding and all of this stuff.”

Khurshudyan: How much did it help you to live with him when you first came to play for Washington?

Kuznetsov: “I lived with him probably three weeks because it’s new rules and I didn’t speak English. It’s pretty tough. He teach me a lot and he explained a lot. [Dmitry Orlov] explained a lot, too. I always worried about being late to meetings, games. He’s always on time, like if a meeting’s at 9:15, he’ll show up at 9:10. You know, he’s been in this league long time. He know what need to do right. He’s never going to be late because he know the right time. But I’m kind of like worried, like, ‘Hey, we should go early a little bit. I’m a rookie, I have to be first, you know?’ He said, ‘No, don’t worry. You’re with me.'”

Kuznetsov said watching “Family Feud” with teammates is part of his pre-game routine, and he also watches it in the gym.

AD

AD

Kuznetsov: “That guy is legit. Even if I don’t understand sometimes what they say, what the questions, what the answers, but it just looks funny when he makes fun of the people. That’s nice show. We should, if we have a chance, go to Orlando and see it. That’s real nice, but it’s problem because I’m not very good with English, and he’ll make fun of me for sure. I’ll be shy. But that’s good TV show. I say that once, and I see people love that. They say that, ‘Oh, Kuzy watching the Family Feud.’ No one understands why, but it looks funny. We should do that for the fans. They have to know something inside the team a little bit because they spend so many times, they want to support the team well and they always come to the practice, so they want to know something more from the inside the locker room. Not about the system, but some fun time. They got so excited when they know about that, you know? We should give them something new this year for sure.”

Khurshudyan: What other American shows do you watch?