Much has been made about the formation of Russia's new league, the KHL (Continental Hockey League) because of it's contentions with and it's desire to rival the NHL. While NHL training camps open in two weeks, the KHL's inaugural season began on Tuesday with five games, three of which went to overtime. Most notable, Alex Radulov set up former Anaheim Duck Oleg Tverdovsky for a goal in his debut with Ufa in a 4-1 win over Yaroslavl.
Wednesday's games were highlighted by the marquee matchup of Jaromir Jagr's Avangard Omsk vs. Alexei Morozov's Ak Bars Kazan. Morozov helped his team edge Omsk with two third period powerplay goals in a 4-2 win. Now with a great deal of former NHL players and unsigned draft choices in the KHL, this will certainly be a league that people will keep an eye on. We’ll see if the Continental Hockey League can live up to the hype it has generated.
Wednesday's games were highlighted by the marquee matchup of Jaromir Jagr's Avangard Omsk vs. Alexei Morozov's Ak Bars Kazan. Morozov helped his team edge Omsk with two third period powerplay goals in a 4-2 win. Now with a great deal of former NHL players and unsigned draft choices in the KHL, this will certainly be a league that people will keep an eye on. We’ll see if the Continental Hockey League can live up to the hype it has generated.
1 comment:
Great game between Avangard and Ak Bars. I thought there was some very marginal calls in the second and third periods that led to too many pp's and broke up the EV flow. Morozov's two goals were beauties (though Grahame obviously wants the first one back). The set-up by Zaripov on the last one, where he pulled that little spin move to buy time, was gorgeous. I am really looking forward to watching more of this league. And hopefully the relatively high scoring will remain. I have some more comments over at http://imbroglioh.blogspot.com/2008/09/khl-impresses-week-1.html for those interested.
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