24 years old Karri Ramo is one of the top KHL goalies. His NHL rights were recently traded to the Montreal Canadiens and he's expected to join the Habs during the next summer as his deal with Avangard Omsk of the KHL will run out on the next April 30th. In this interview with Ilya Elchaninov of sports.ru Ramo talked about his future plans, about his past experiences with Tampa Bay and about life in Russia.
RussianHockeyFans.com offers you a translation.
28 years old Marek Svatos signed with Avangard Omsk of the KHL. He was an unrestricted free agent.
The forward was drafted by the Colorado Avalanche in the 2001 NHL Draft, and played with the Avs a total of six seasons.
Svatos scored a 164 points in 316 NHL career games. He won the Memorial Cup with the Kootenay Ice of the WHL in the 2002.
Svatos struggled in producing constantly, mostly due to his size and injury proneness. Avangard Omsk now has a good contingent of Czech and Slovakian players, having in their team also Jaromir Jagr, Roman Cervenka and Martin Skoula.
Svatos signed a one year deal with the Siberian team.
24 years old Nikita Nikitin has been signed to an entry level contract by the St. Louis Blues, as reported by the team's official page.
Nikitin played his whole career with Avangard Omsk. Last season he scored four goals and 13 points in 43 regular season games. "His top feature is his excellent first pass. He can launch a forward one-on-one against the goalie directly from his own zone", Russian reporter Ilya Elchaninov based in Omsk said to RussianHockeyFans.com. "He's got a very strong shot, but he lacks accuracy."
Nikitin played with team Russia one of the stages for the Euro Hockey Tour, even if he couldn't score a single point in the three games he wore team Russia jersey. "He's a fairly fast skating and is very good on the corners", added Elchaninov. "The fact with him is that he's inconsistent. He can play a great game and then a bad one the day after. Sometimes he makes some positioning mistakes. He needs to be well mentored by his coach. When Avangard's coach was Sergei Gersonsky he was the best defenseman of the team, but when that coach stepped out, it was just not the same. He can play both defensive and offensive roles, even if he's better as stay at home blue liner. Nikitin has a big potential, but he needs to be motivated."
Nikitin has been signed by the Blues to a one year contract. He was drafted in the fifth round of the 2004 NHL Entry Draft.
As reported on the official Avangard Omsk's web site, Roman Cervenka signed a two years deal with the KHL team and thus won't sign with the Toronto Maple Leafs of the NHL.
Cervenka is a natural center who oddly enough has never been drafted in the NHL. His strong play in the latest couple of seasons put him under the lights and the Toronto Maple Leafs were thought favorites to sign him by most North American media outlets like ESPN or TSN.
But most likely Roman Cervenka, 24, preferred to play side-to-side with Jaromir Jagr.
During an interview with Sovietskiy Sport Jaromir Jagr declared that he would like to spend another season with Avangard Omsk.
Jaromir Jagr: "I really love Omsk and its inhabitants, their character. Maybe it's strange to hear this from a Czech, and they won't believe me. But I like everything here. I would like to stay in Russia, but I want to get something serious next year. My career will be over soon and thus I can't waste my chances. I wanted to win something with Avangard, but we couldn't.
This is my fault too. I never blame others. I've always hoped that if I would be playing well, then also other players would perform better. I'm not looking for other teams now. I would like to stay in Avangard, but it's not up to me only. I still don't know about my future. I believe that God will help me in getting another chance.
I don't think about the money, that's for my agent. But I will understand if Avangard will reduce its budget. We didn't play like we should. Who can pay big salaries to players which don't give results on ice?"
All quotes translated by RussianHockeyFans.com
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.
Kuznetsov: "If we had won, it would have been unfair"