Friday’s KHL game between SKA Saint Petersburg and Dinamo Minsk featured a highlight-reel hit that you have to see to believe.
The play started with SKA defenseman Markus Phillips (#18) checking Dinamo forward Vitaly Pinchuk (#81). The contact made Pinchuk go airborne into SKA’s bench, where he then collided hard with Yegor Zavragin (#30), sending SKA’s backup goaltender through the glass and into the tunnel.
“Pretty unique kind of friendly fire 🧐,” the KHL tweeted on its English language X account.
Hockey Hall of Famer Igor Larionov, the coach of SKA, was asked about the hit afterward by Match TV.
“Literally a minute and a half before, I told the goalie on the bench, Zavragin, ‘Take off your mask. This isn’t junior hockey. You need to watch the game so they can see your face,'” Larionov said to the channel and via a translation by Google Translate. “And then, first a puck flew at him, and then a man!
“In the second period, I told him, ‘Take off your mask again. People want to see you on TV.’ He said, ‘Igor Nikolaevich, no. I was almost knocked out.’ Moments like these happen, and they enhance the game. It will be on all the highlights of the day, it will be on Match TV. It’s part of the game. We didn’t want to offend anyone or play rough. It just so happened that the guy got knocked out. It happens. I’m glad the guy avoided injury and continued playing. But Zava said he won’t take his mask off again, even on the bench.”
The game featured several notable players who had once suited up in the Washington Capitals organization, including Stan Galiev, Alex Limoges, and Zach Fucale. SKA went on to win 4-1, getting goals from Brendan Leipsic, Matvei Polyakov, and Mikhail Vorobyov.
