Vityaz Chekhov News

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:

Former NHL and Team Russia center Alexei Zhamnov decided to lace them up again after more than three years of absence. The 39 years old from Moscow, Russia, spent the last seasons as KHL's Vityaz Chekhov General Manager.

This is what he declared to Sport-Express:

Zhamnov: "It's extremely unpleasant that they consider us guilty for the fight during the game against Avangard. It's not correct, and I want people to talk well about Vityaz. Therefore I decided to return on ice, but for now I will only train with the team so to understand my physical conditions. After this, probably, I will sign a contract with the club until the end of this season."

Alexei Zhamnov played a total of 807 NHL games, with 249 goals, 470 assists and 719 points. He spent 13 seasons in North America, with the Winnipeg Jets, Chicago Blackhawks, Philadelphia Flyers and Boston Bruins. He also played the NHL All-Star Game in the 2001-2002 season.

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"

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.

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.