KHL, NHL fights

The KHL just released the set of rules for the 2010-11 season, and it contains an interesting part, how the KHL will regulate fights. Until the 2009-10 season it just followed the IIHF rules, which had a five minutes major plus game misconduct for any fight. But from the next season it's going to change.

The KHL will give less penalties for fighting, but at the same time they will be stricter. As usual some rules follow the NHL ones, like the rules for the fight during the last five minutes of a match. Probably the KHL managed to preserve the fighting aspect, which can't be erased from the game, without fully allowing it and leaving the fighters unpunished. It's probably a good compromise, but before of any judgement it's better to see how it works out after a few months of play.

NHL Blue Jackets forward Nikita Filatov, playing on a loan basis for CSKA of the KHL, was knocked down by Darcy Verot of Vityaz Chekhov in Monday's game between Vityaz and CSKA.

After the famous bench-clearing fight Vityaz, a team having an enormous for the KHL amount of tough guys, didn't fight at all. There were rumors that players were told not to fight in order to calm down fans. The KHL even warned Vityaz to exclude the team from the league in case of another cancelled game.

The peace didn't last long as on Monday Darcy Verot knocked down youngster Nikita Filatov with a cheap shot to the head and got a game misconduct.

Here is the video of Verot's cheap shot on Filatov:

Russian superstar Alexander Ovechkin was really close to battle in another NHL fight, but Matt Bradley stole him the scene and fought instead of him during the third period of the Tuesday's match between the Washington Capitals and the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The first brawl was started by Stewe Downie after a clean hit by Ovechkin, but it was quickly stopped by the refs, who gave the two players a minor penalty. When they got out of the penalty box Ovechkin was ready to go as he dropped the gloves and the helmet too, but when he and Downie were approaching each other, Matt Bradley intervened and started fighting Downie himself, not allowing his captain to fight.

"I didn't see him actually," said Ovechkin after the match to the Washington Post. "So I dropped my helmet, dropped my gloves, ready to fight, and Brads jumped in the fight for me. He do a great job."

"We had a guy like that going after our best player, obviously we can't let that happen," Bradley stated to the Washington Post. "I'll bet they would do the exact same thing if someone was squaring off with Stamkos. I mean, you don't let guys like that go after your best players, and he's our best player. And no matter who it is, we're not gonna allow someone like Downie to go after him."

Below is the video of the fight.

The participants of the Saturday's bench-clearing brawl in the KHL, Jaromir Jagr's Avangard Omsk and Vityaz Chekhov, set a new world hockey record getting 840 PIMs. The KHL disciplinary committee met on Sunday to spend 7 hours studying the incident.

As a result, the total number of PIMs was increased from 691 to 840 minutes. Six Vityaz and one Avangard player were suspended for one game. Both teams got fined for the total of $133,000. Vityaz was warned that in case of a similar situation happening in future the team will get excluded from the KHL.

According to Russian newspaper Sport-Express the teams were awarded with enormous 840 PIMs. Vityaz got 421 minutes, Avangard -- 419. The teams surpassed the record set by NHL's Ottawa Senators and Philadelphia Flyers in 2004, when teams together earned 419 PIMs. It should be noticed that Vityaz beat this record just by themselves having 2 more PIMs than Senators and Flyers combined.

See also:
Video: KHL game cancelled after bench-clearing fight, teams get 691 PIM
Jaromir Jagr: "I've never seen a fight like this before"

Jaromir Jagr, playing for Avangard Omsk of the KHL, spoke about the yesterday's massive brawl in the game against Vityaz Chekhov.

The game was canceled because there was not enough players to continue the match as the lion's share of them got game misconducts. Jagr himself fought against Darcy Verot.

RussianHockeyFans.com offers you a translation of this Jagr interview to Sovsport.ru.

Jagr: "I've never seen anything like this before. I have never even heard of such situations. And of course it never happened in the NHL when I was playing there. It just couldn't happen.

Why not?
Jagr: "The rules. If players fight during the warm-up or jump from the bench to the ice during a fight they can get suspended for 20 games. And it means losing a quarter of the salary. To tell you more, the suspension can be even more severe -- 6 months or a year. No one would like to get a one-year suspension as a result of stupid behavior."

A Saturday game between Vityaz Chekhov and Avangard Omsk in the KHL didn't last any longer than 3 minutes and 39 seconds. It was postponed after a massive brawl because there was not enough players to continue the game. Teams got 691 PIM, which look like a record in hockey history.

Just seconds after the game started Brandon Sugden, former AHL tough guy who recently joined Vityaz to replace Chris Simon, jumped on Alexander Svitov. Other players present on the ice started fighting too, among them was a former NHL star Jaromir Jagr who fought Darcy Verot.

After the first wave of fighting was gone the second wave came bringing a bench- and even a penalty-box-clearing fight.

Former NHL players Sergei Zubov, Robert Esche, Oleg Saprykin and Kevin Dallman took part in a massive brawl in a Sunday game between KHL's Barys Astana and SKA St. Petersburg.

The game flared up in the end of the 3rd period when SKA scored a powerplay goal to make the score 5-1 to their advantage.

The fans didn't get a chance to witness a goalie fight but instead they saw a goalie-defenceman fight, as Barys keeper Alexei Kuznetsov faced defenceman Alexei Petrov of SKA.

Sergei Fedorov, who moved from NHL to KHL past summer, got into a fight with Roman Derlyuk to avenge Derlyuk's dirty hit on Sergei's younger brother, Fedor.

After the game 23-year-old Derlyuk couldn't beleive he fought 40-year-old Sergei Fedorov himself.
"Fedorov is a great player, I remember watching him play when I was a kid. I'd even call myself his fan. And if someone told me that I'd ever fight Fedorov I would... I would... never beleive. It just happened that he went after me, one of his punches reached my head and I... Of course I'd never start a fight against such player as Sergei Fedorov... never," said Derlyuk to Alyona Shilova of vhockey.ru after the game.

Sergei Fedorov is playing for Metallurg Magnitogorsk on a line with his younger brother Fedor. In 36 games Sergei scored 8 goals and recorded 16 assists. His plus/minus rating is +23. It's Metallurg's best and KHL's 3rd best result.

Two of the best fighters in the KHL finally met each other. Darcy Verot of Vityaz in red-white vs. Martin Grenier of Traktor in black.