Who Allowed Kvasha in the Door?

Oleg Kvasha, welcome back to the Lounge. Who did you bribe to get in here? Dear patrons, I used to assign Mr. Kvasha the booth near the washroom door, the booth of contempt. It's a tag I pretty much gave him just for showing up, which to me was pretty much all he did when he was with the New York Islanders, one of his three stops in the NHL.

No, I was not a big fan of his then. And you would be wise to see the amount of scorn I have scooped up for him as we proceed in this post.

There is a fine Italian restaurant in Corona, Queens, not far from the lot where Shea Stadium and its failed attempt at plumbing once stood. The fine establishment is called the Park Side, and it has a ring of tables that come with the famous names who once sat there as regulars. My favorite was the Dallas Green table.

With that inspiration, I might have to post a cheap plank with Mr. Kvasha's name in the booth of contempt. These days, Mr. Kvasha is a forward for Avangard Omsk Region, which opened its KHL season at home against the money men of SKA St. Petersburg. He had one shot, lost 58.3 percent of his faceoffs, had his usual tripping penalty and played 17 minutes 40 seconds of work.

In short, just what I expected from the man who came to the Islanders in the deal (hmm, who made that one?) that sent Roberto Luongo and Olli Jokinen to the Florida Panthers prior to the 2000-01 season.

While Mr. Kvasha was up to his usual efforts, one Viktor Tikhonov, a notable bust with the Phoenix Coyotes when they were led by Wayne Gretzky, had two goals on four shots, won all of his faceoffs and no penalties in 16:52 of ice time for SKA. (Tikhonov did, however, make a great promotional video for the Coyotes, who were trying to attract fans with talking puppets.)



Final result, SKA St. Petersburg 5, the fighting Kvashas of Avangard Omsk Region 1.

In other scores: Vladivostok Admrial defeated Amur Khabarovsk in a shootout, 4-3. Yugra Khanty-Mansiysk beat Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, 2-1; Severstal Cherepovets over Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg in a shootout, 2-1; Neftekhmimik Nizhnekamsk defeated Ak Bars Kazan, 3-1; Salavat Yulaev Ufa over Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod in a shootout, 3-2; Vityaz Chekov over Traktor Chelyabinsk, 5-3; Dynamo Moscow beat Metallurg Magnitogorsk, 3-1; Donbass Donetsk over Slovan Bratislava, 4-2; and Medvescak Zagreb defeated CSKA (which some of us used to know better as the Red Army team), 7-1.

When I get any firm roundups or highlight videos, I will update and post them here.

UPDATE: The KHL's official roundup, with two videos, for Friday's games is here.

One final note: I know that we are always told not to take everything from Wikipedia as fact. Given that, I was pleased to note that written on Mr. Kvasha's Wiki page is the tidbit that he is known as "the Chosen One." There are many things that I can make up. This is not one of them.

Now get in the booth, Mr. Kvasha. You have been chosen.