The team's coach (Andrei Nazarov) is almost certainly the reason this whole situation is happening.
Nazarov is a retired hockey goon (had zero talent besides his large size and ability to fight people) and has an extremely short temper. Last year he beat the hell out of the team's doctor while coaching SKA Saint Petersburg. He was fired mid-season.
Nazarov is also known to regularly abuse officials and resort to questionable tactics when something doesn't go his way, whether it's the score or an injury. He perfectly fits the depiction of a coach who encourages violence.
These two teams had already met in the pre-season and one of the players had suffered a leg injury. When you understand who Nazarov is a person, you start to realize what happened next. Nazarov decided to put all of the team's worst and/or most aggressive players on the lineup for the next game, which resulted in this.
Take Damir Ryspayev (the player who was banned) for example, who played 16 games last season, had ZERO points, and to top it off had 111 penalty minutes. His Eliteprospects profile would also indicate that even in the junior level he's been a totally useless scorer who just racks up a ton of penalty minutes. (http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=160961) |