HC Vityaz

Hockey Club Vityaz (ХК Витязь, English: HC Knight) is a professional ice hockey team based in Podolsk, Moscow Oblast, Russia. They are members of the Bobrov Division of the Kontinental Hockey League. In the first few seasons of the KHL, the team was widely known for playing a tough and physical North American-influenced style of hockey.[1][2]

Vityaz Podolsk
NicknameKnights
CityPodolsk, Moscow Oblast
LeagueKHL 2008–present
ConferenceWestern
DivisionBobrov
Founded1996
Home arenaPodolsk Hero Arena
(capacity: 5,500)
Colours   
PresidentMikhail Golovkov
General managerIgor Varitskiy
Head coachMikhail Kravets
CaptainAlexander Semin
Affiliate(s)HC Ryazan (VHL)
Russkie Vityazi (MHL)
WebsiteHCVityaz.ru
Franchise history
Hockey Club Vityaz Podolsk
1996–2004, 2013–present
Hockey Club Vityaz Chekhov
2004–2013

History

The club was founded in 1996 in Podolsk. In 2000, the team moved to the neighboring city of Chekhov; however, the team kept playing under the name Vityaz Podolsk until 2004, where the renaming was finally done. The team initially played its home games at the Ice Palace Vityaz in Podolsk, the same arena HC MVD used until 2006. Such a thing was allowed by virtue of the opening in 2004 of a new arena in Chekhov, the Ice Hockey Center 2004, that Vityaz began using. Initially, this arena had a capacity of 1,370; it was expanded in 2007–08 to 3,300. Vityaz played at the top level of Russian hockey for the 2000–01 season; it got relegated to Vysshaya Liga at the end of the season. In 2005, Vityaz made to the Vysshaya Liga final losing the championship to HC MVD 4 games to 1 but earned a promotion back to the elite level.

Rumors of a move back to Podolsk arose in the wake of the inaugural KHL season as even with the expansion of 2007–08, due to Chekhov's capacity being below the KHL league standards. The team restarted playing their home games in Podolsk, but remained attached to Chekhov. For the 2013–14 KHL season, the team moved back to Podolsk.[3]

Kontinental Hockey League

Chekhov's debuts in the KHL were pretty bad. Vityaz registered a mere 6 wins in regulation, plus 5 in overtime; in counterpart for those 11 wins, the team lost 45 times (of which, 12 games were in overtime). The meager 40 points collected meant that the team finished at a dismal 23rd place out of 24, a single point ahead of the equally bad Khimik Voskresensk. Head coach Sergei Gomolyako made the mistake in October to dress one more foreign player than allowed by the rules, resulting in a match lost by forfeit. Gomolyako claimed he ignored there was such a rule, and the following week, he was fired, to be replaced by former NHL player and Vityaz head coach Mike Krushelnyski. Vityaz' fans enjoyed the return of Krushelnyski, who was had brought the team to the playoffs in 2006–07. But Chekhov's goon-full roster, which general manager Alexei Zhamnov wishes to shape after the 1990s Chicago Blackhawks for whom he played, just couldn't bring good enough performances to repeat the feat. They however led the league in penalty minutes, some 500 minutes ahead of the second most penalized club, with players such as Nathan Perrott (137 minutes in 9 matches and not a single point), Darcy Verot (more disciplined and productive than in his first season with Vityaz, even though it still only meant 5 points and 168 minutes) and Chris Simon (league leader at 263 minutes, and club's second best scorer behind Gleb Klimenko at 27 points). The team traded away three of its six top scorers (Klimenko, Pavel Boychenko and Igor Radulov) and without the arrival of Bryan Berard (who scored 18 points in 25 games and vastly improved Chekhov's powerplay), the team might have done even worse.

Death of Alexei Cherepanov

But Chekhov's season was particularly darkened by the death of Alexei Cherepanov in October 2008, a death occurred on its home ice and that might have been avoided had Chekhov's arena been equipped with a working defibrillator and the ambulance that is required to remain available until the end of the match not departed well before the end, resulting in much longer delays between the accident and the moment where Cherepanov arrived at the nearest hospital.[4] [5]

Mass brawl in Chekhov

2009–10 felt like déja-vu for Chekhov. After almost being thrown out of the league due to its finances in August (it needed to find 300 million of rubles, which it did), the Knights started the season with two wins and temporarily led the league. Things didn't last however as the team finished 23rd out of 24 teams with only 13 regular-season wins (plus 3 in overtime and 2 in the shootouts—an improvement from the previous year), 54 points and, once again, a colossal amount of penalty minutes: 1522, ahead and by far every other team in the league. Vadim Berdnikov, Gleb Klimenko (who came back from Kazan) and Chris Simon led the offence with respectively 33, 27 and 25 points. Darcy Verot, on the other hand, led the team in penalty minutes with 376 in 34 matches.

Once again, an incident between Vityaz and Avangard marked the season. On January 9, 2010, the game between Vityaz and Avangard was stopped after 3 minutes and 39 seconds when a bench-clearing and penalty-box-clearing brawl broke out. Darcy Verot had instigated the brawl after three minutes of play when he shot the puck at an Avangard player. A mass brawl quickly followed, which the referees could deal with. However, as soon as the game was resumed, fighting resumed as well and both benches cleared to join the fight.[6] The game was quickly getting out of hand and the officials decided it was better to cancel the whole game. Little else could be done, as a whopping total of 707 penalty minutes had been incurred – a new world record – and a total of 33 players on both teams have been ejected from the game, as well as both head coaches. Only four players avoided being ejected. The KHL imposed a total of 5.7 million rubles (about US $191,000) fines, including 150,000 rubles fines to Vityaz's Darcy Verot and Brandon Sugden and Avangard's Alexander Svitov and Dmitry Vlasenkov.[7] Additionally, Verot, Sugden, Vlasenkov and four other Vityaz players received one-game suspensions. Additionally, this game became the first in the league history where both teams lost the game, as the league declared it would be a 5–0 loss for both Avangard and Vityaz. No team earned points for this match. It was the first time Avangard visited Chekhov since Cherepanov's death.

Season-by-season KHL record

Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, OTL = Overtime/Shootout Losses, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against

SeasonGPWOTWLOTLPtsGFGAFinishTop ScorerPlayoffs
2008–0956753212431372266th, ChernyshevGleb Klimenko (30 points: 19 G, 11 A; 39 GP)Did not qualify
2009–1056135335541422166th, TarasovVadim Berdnikov (33 points: 9 G, 24 A; 47 GP)Did not qualify
2010–1154134325521191786th, TarasovVadim Berdnikov (29 points: 12 G, 17 A; 53 GP)Did not qualify
2011–1254106362441081936th, TarasovMikhail Anisin (29 points: 16 G, 13 A; 38 GP)Did not qualify
2012–1352117268551191516th, BobrovAlexander Korolyuk (29 points: 15 G, 14 A; 41 GP)Did not qualify
2013–14541262610581101477th, TarasovMaxim Afinogenov (26 points: 12 G, 14 A; 53 GP)Did not qualify
2014–1560206286781521867th, TarasovMario Kempe (30 points: 13 G, 19 A; 54 GP)Did not qualify
2015–1660176323701291666th, TarasovMaxim Afinogenov (28 points: 15 G, 13 A; 56 GP)Did not qualify
2016–1760267225971621585th, TarasovAlexei Kopeikin (51 points: 21 G, 30 A; 60 GP)Lost in Conference Quarterfinals, 0–4 (SKA Saint Petersburg)
2017–1856174278671311607th, TarasovAlexei Makeyev (38 points: 18 G, 20 A; 55 GP)Did not qualify
2018–1962235277631341694th, TarasovMiro Aaltonen (42 points: 19 G, 23 A; 61 GP)Lost in Conference Quarterfinals, 0–4 (CSKA Moscow)
2019–20621982411651371663rd, TarasovAlexander Semin (38 points: 18 G, 20 A; 50 GP)Lost in Conference Quarterfinals, 0–4 (SKA Saint Petersburg)

Players

Current roster

Updated 22 August 2020.[8][9]

# Nat Player Pos S/G Age Acquired Birthplace
44 Evgeny Artyukhin LW L 37 2019 Moscow, Russian SFSR
55 Artyom Borodkin D L 29 2020 Chelyabinsk, Russian SFSR
17 Justin Danforth RW R 27 2020 Oshawa, Ontario, Canada
16 Kaspars Daugavins LW L 32 2020 Riga, Latvian SSR
18 Alexander Dergachyov C L 24 2020 Langepas, Russia
75 Nikita Goncharov F R 21 2018 Orel, Russia
11 Igor Golovkov D L 30 2011 Moscow, Russian SFSR
71 Svyatoslav Grebenshchikov RW L 26 2019 Saint Petersburg, Russia
34 Linus Hultström D R 28 2020 Vimmerby, Sweden
5 Jakub Jerabek D L 29 2019 Plzeň, Czechoslovakia
26 Evgeny Katichev D L 34 2016 Chelyabinsk, Russian SFSR
74 Pyotr Kochetkov G L 21 2019 Penza, Russia
73 Danila Kvartalnov LW L 23 2019 Voskresensk, Russia
68 Ivan Larichev LW L 25 2019 Nizhny Tagil, Russia
19 Dmitri Lugin RW R 30 2020 Khabarovsk, Russian SFSR
98 Fedor Malykhin F L 30 2020 Sverdlovsk, Russian SFSR
93 Danila Moiseyev LW L 22 2017 Moscow, Russia
81 Yuri Pautov D L 25 2017 Yaroslavl, Russia
22 Vitali Popov C L 28 2020 Yekaterinburg, Russia
45 Daniil Pylenkov D L 20 2019 Yegoryevsk, Russia
28 Alexander Semin (C) RW R 36 2018 Krasnoyarsk, Russian SFSR
10 Alexander Shevchenko RW R 28 2018 Belgorod, Russia
38 Mikhail Smolin F L 23 2020 Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
21 Mattias Tedenby LW L 30 2020 Vetlanda, Sweden
1 Anton Todykov G L 28 2017 Moscow, Russia
65 Pavel Vorobey D R 23 2019 Minsk, Belarus
59 Yegor Voronkov D R 24 2015 Podolsk, Russia
88 Pavel Varfolomeyev LW R 25 2019 Magnitogorsk, Russia
33 Ilya Yezhov G L 34 2019 Krasnodar, Russian SFSR
8 Ilya Zinovyev LW L 24 2020 Chelyabinsk, Russia

KHL All-Star Game

Players

Head coaches

  • Vyacheslav Anisin, July 1, 1997 – 31 May 1999
  • Alexander Zachesov, 1 June 1999 – 11 October 2000
  • Alexander Barinev, 11 October 2000 – 30 April 2001
  • Valery Belov, 30 April 2001 – 15 June 2003
  • Yury Rumyancev, 15 June 2003 – 5 April 2004
  • Miskat Fakrutdinov, 5 April 2004 – 16 January 2005
  • Alexander Bodunov, January 16, 2005 – 30 June 2005
  • Anatoly Bogdanov, 30 June 2005 – 27 October 2005
  • Alexander Bodunov, 27 October 2005 – 4 April 2006
  • Mike Krushelnyski, 4 April 2006 – 31 March 2007
  • Miskat Fakrutdinov, 18 June 2007 – 28 October 2007
  • Sergey Gomolyako, 29 October 2007 – 5 November 2008
  • Mike Krushelnyski, 6 November 2008 – 3 December 2009
  • Alexei Yarushkin, 6 December 2009 – 14 October 2010
  • Andrei Nazarov, 14 October 2010 – 18 May 2012
  • Yuri Leonov, 20 June 2012 – 11 January 2014
  • Oleg Orekhovskiy, 11 January 2014 – present

Franchise records and leaders

KHL scoring leaders

These are the top-ten point-scorers in franchise history in the KHL. Note: Pos = Position; GP = Games Played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; P/G = Points per game; bold = current Vityaz player [10]

Player GP G A Pts PIM +/- PPG SHG GWG
Alexei Makeyev38186101187134−417516
Maxim Afinogenov2688084164325−241939
Roman Horak2245956115106−222154
Miro Aaltonen154476311066720110
Vadim Berdnikov163316192177−22733
Mario Kempe166394483144−281327
Chris Simon113374380503−171909
Alexander Semin10437427911231309
Artemi Panarin14329467597−151002
Alexander Nikulin17726487418−17802

Honors

Runners-up

Vysshaya Liga (1): 2005

Champions

Wingas Cup (1): 2017

Lehner Cup (1): 2018

References

  1. 21/04/2013+7°C (2011-08-25). "Violent Vityaz rock Russian hockey | SPORTS". The Moscow News. Archived from the original on 2013-09-28. Retrieved 2013-04-21.
  2. "KHL scorers who used to be NHLers". The Hockey News. 2010-11-24. Archived from the original on 2012-06-03. Retrieved 2013-04-21.
  3. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-07-01. Retrieved 2013-08-11.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  4. "Russian investigators say Cherepanov was 'doping'". The Sports Network. 2008-12-29. Archived from the original on 31 December 2008. Retrieved 5 January 2009.
  5. "Заявление Континентальной хоккейной лиги по итогам расследования обстоятельств смерти хоккеиста Алексея Черепанова". KHL.ru. 2008-12-30. Archived from the original on 13 January 2009. Retrieved 5 January 2009.
  6. "This is hockey?". KHL.ru. 9 January 2010. Archived from the original on 14 January 2010. Retrieved 1 February 2010.
  7. "Both teams lose". KHL.ru. 10 January 2010. Archived from the original on 14 January 2010. Retrieved 1 February 2010.
  8. "Vityaz team" (in Russian). hcvityaz.ru. Retrieved 2019-01-28.
  9. "Vityaz team roster". www.khl.ru. Retrieved 2019-01-28.
  10. "HC Vityaz All-Time leaders". quanthockey.com. 2019-01-16. Retrieved 2019-01-16.
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