Those who have suggested that the NHL needs to allow obstruction to creep back into the game, eliminate the instigator rule and widen rinks to slow down the game and allow the NHL’s big, strong, fast and hard-hitting players to earn better chances of avoiding head injuries might suggest that the KHL actually serves as a “model” for the future shape of NHL hockey. The KHL plays its games on 100-foot-wide rinks, it allows players to clutch and grab, and as Vityaz Chekhov has demonstrated, if a team wishes to load up on enforcers to police the game as they see fit, the KHL offers little resistence to that style of play. In a league where the pace of play resembles soccer more than it does hockey, former NHL’ers abound, and Atlant Mytischi’s Alexei Kovalev tells the CBC’s Paul Owe that the KHL presents a safer workplace for its players:
“The ice surface is a lot bigger so there is more space and more room for players that can be hurt [to] get a...
Original Story:
