Russian players in NHL

Russian goalie Alexander Pechurski played his first NHL game on Saturday and he was named 3rd star of the match thanks to his 12 saves in 35 minutes. In an interview with Russian website allhockey.ru he talked about his eventful weekend and his NHL experience.

RussianHockeyFans.com offers you a translation.

Russian goalie Alexander Pechurski of the Pittsburgh Penguins played his first NHL match against the Vancouver Canucks at General Motors Place on January 16th. The young goalie played a WHL regular season clash on friday night and then he has been signed by the Pens to a one-game amateur try out after their starting goalie Marc-Andre Fleury suffered from a broken finger and was forced out of the game.

Pechursky had to play in Fleury's pads as the ones he wears in Tri-City don't meet NHL regulations. But even if he didn't use his own equipment, had to travel a lot and played in back-to-back games he showed that he is a NHL-bound player as he stopped 12 shots and has been named the match's third star even if the Penguins lost to the Vancouver Canucks 6-2.

The Magnitogorsk, Russia, native has been iced in the second period with the Pens down 1-5. He allowed only one goal in the thirtheen shots he faced.

The talk around Ilya Kovalchuk's contract with the Atlanta Thrashers goes on. In an interview with The Atlanta Journal Constitution the Russian superstar said that he feels "very confident" about a new contract.

When asked if he's frustrated about the lenght of time it's taking:

“No, not really. I just try to focus on my game and my goal to make the playoffs. I don’t care about the contract situation. Everybody goes through it. It’s not frustrating at all. … It’s not easy to sign a deal. Whatever it takes, we’ll take our time.”

I feel very confident. Like I said, I like everything that’s been done over time. It’s not an easy thing to sign a long-term deal, and if it has to take until the last second, that’s what it takes. You never know.”

Kovalchuk's five-year, $32 million contract will run out next june. In this season he scored twenty-five goals and forty-seven points thirty-eight matches. Recently he scored his 600th NHL point.

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.

Right on Christmas time the Washington Capitals extended Alexander Semin's contract for one more year, with sources from TSN claiming that it was worth around six million dollars. Semin's contract will now run out in June 2011. This was the main topic of an interview that Alexander gave to Slava Malamud of Sport Express.

RussianHockeyFans.com offers you a translation.

Russian NHL forward Nikolai Kulemin of the Toronto Maple Leafs is improving and even if his point production is not very high, he finds other ways to contribute to the team's success.

"Kulemin has been one of our better forwards," said Leaf coach Ron Wilson to Toronto Star. "He doesn't get many points, but he forechecks well. He did a great job on the penalty kill, and he made a great play on the winning goal."

In a Tuesday game against the Florida Panthers Kulemin assisted to Alexei Ponikarovsky on the game winning goal doing most of the grunt work.

"Obviously, he had a full head of steam," Ponikarovsky told Toronto Star. "I knew he was going to get there first, so I just went to the net and hollered at him.

"[Kulemin] is a hard-working player and a pretty good skater. When he's going, the other team has got to trip him or do something to stop him. He's got a lot of moves."

Kulemin's improvement can be partially attributed to his English getting better.

"Coach wants us to play hard and I try to do that,” Kulemin said to Toronto Star. “It’s easy for me. I understand more English."

In 39 National Hockey League games for the Leafs Kulemin registered 6 goals, 7 assists, 13 points, a -4 rating, 62 shots on goal and 14:56 average time on ice.

Kulemin wasn't included in the Russian Hockey Olympics 2010 roster.

Russian NHL superstar Alexander Ovechkin was named Washington Capitals' captain on Tuesday. The position was vacant after the former captain Chris Clark has been traded with defenseman Milan Jurcina for Columbus Blue Jackets' Jason Chimera.

"If I need to say something, I will say something," Ovechkin told the Washington Post. "But I will show what I can do on the ice. It's a big honor for me. I'm going to do my best, but I don't want to concentrate on having a 'C' on my heart. I'm just going to play the same."

The Capitals won the match 4-2, but Ovechkin has been left out of the score sheet. Alexander Semin scored two goals, including the game winning one.

"I had talked to a lot of [players] the last couple of days and they said Alex is the only choice," said Bodreau to the Washington Post. "He's our leader, he's our guy. What shows he was ready was when I talked to him two or three days ago, he said he would accept the responsibility but 'only if my teammates want it.' He was already thinking about the team instead of himself, which is what captains do."

Ovechkin is the fourteenth captain in the Capitals' history and the sixth Russian player who to have the same honor. He succeeds Pavel Bure (Florida Panthers), Alexander Mogilny (Buffalo Sabres), Alexei Yashin (Ottawa Senators and New York Islanders), Alexei Zhamnov (Chicago Blackhawks) and Ilya Kovalchuk (Atlanta Thrashers).

It took 579 games to Ilya Kovalchuk to score his 600th point in the National Hockey League. In his 579th effort, during the second period of a match between Atlanta Thrashers and Buffalo Sabres, he scored the first goal of the game with a top-shelf wrist shot from the slot.

In this season Kovalchuk scored 25 goals and 47 points in 32 matches, numbers that make him the fourth top goal scorer and the eighth top point scorer in the league. He's also the fifth forward with the most average time on ice with more than 22 minutes a night. He logs in average only eighteen seconds less than the mos used forward, slovak Marian Gaborik of the New York Rangers.

Washington Capitals head coach Bruce Bodreau, as reported by Tarik El-Bashir in his Capitals Insider, feels that Semyon Varlamov is quickly improving in the recover from the groin injury he suffered on December 7th.

Bodreau: "Semyon Varlamov is inching toward returning to the lineup. He's getting betterm the week after Christmas, he's going to be playing one of those games. I don't know which one it will be, but it will be one of them."

Semyon Varlamov is a strong candidate for the third goalkeeper spot at the upcoming Olympic Games in Vancouver. This season he has posted so far a .927 save percentage with a GAA of 2.21.

Habs' Andrei Markov and Thrashers' Maxim Afinogenov liked joke when they played for Dynamo Moscow of the KHL in the 2004/05 season, according to their former partner Yakov Rylov.

Rylov gave an interview to Russian site sports.ru where he recollected some stories with Markov and Afinogenov. RussianHockeyFans.com offers you a translation of some parts of the interview.

"Once Max Afinogenov made a bad pass and [Dynamo's head coach] Krikunov exclaimed: "What are you, blind?". The following day the team gathered in a room for the game analysis. Max took a seat in the first row and put on strong glasses. You know, the ones that enlarge your eyes considerably. Krikunov came in and started laughing.

At one moment there were rumors that Mikhail Grabovskiy (now playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs) would get traded from Neftekhimik to Dynamo. First he was expected to come right at that moment, then he was expected to come after the season. So one day there was a practice and Markov and Afinogenov were skating in jerseys with Grabovskiy's surname on the back."

Russian forward Ilya Kovalchuk gave an interview to Russian site sportbox.ru where he talked about the Olympics in Vancouver.

RussianHockeyFans.com offers you a translation.

Q. How often do you think about the Olympic Games in Vancouver?
Kovalchuk: "Pretty often, but right now I'm focused on playing for the Thrashers. We got into a functional slump and now have to get out of it as soon as possible."

Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals took part in a photo shoot for Men's Journal.

The photo shoot took place last September in New York.

The photo will appear in the December-January issue of Men's Journal.

Below is a video of the shoot: