HC Vityaz

HC Vityaz Podmoskovje

Full name	HC Vityaz Podolsk 1996–2004, 2013–2022 HC Vityaz Chekhov 2004–2013 Vityaz Moscow Region 2022–present
Nickname(s)	Knights
Founded	1996
Based In	Podolsk, Moscow Oblast
Arena	Podolsk Hero Arena (Capacity: 5,500)
League	KHL 2008–present RSL 2000-2001, 2005-2008 Vysshaya Liga 1998-2000, 2001-2005 First League 1997-1998
Division	Bobrov
Conference	Western
Team Colors
Affiliates	HC Yunison-Moskva (VHL) Russkie Vityazi (MHL)
Website	HCVityaz.ru

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Hockey Club Vityaz (Russian: 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. The team is widely known for playing a tough and physical North American-influenced style of hockey.

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.

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).

Chekhov's season was 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.

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 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.

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. 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. Additionally, Verot, Sugden, Vlasenkov and four other Vityaz players received one-game suspensions.

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

Season	GP	W	OTPS Wins	L	OT-PS L	Pts	GF	GA	Finish	Top Scorer	Playoffs
2008–09	56	7	5	32	12	43	137	226	6th, Chernyshev	Gleb Klimenko (30 points: 19 G, 11 A; 39 GP)	Did not qualify
2009–10	56	13	5	33	5	54	142	216	6th, Tarasov	Vadim Berdnikov (33 points: 9 G, 24 A; 47 GP)	Did not qualify
2010–11	54	13	4	32	5	52	119	178	6th, Tarasov	Vadim Berdnikov (29 points: 12 G, 17 A; 53 GP)	Did not qualify
2011–12	54	10	6	36	2	44	108	193	6th, Tarasov	Mikhail Anisin (29 points: 16 G, 13 A; 38 GP)	Did not qualify
2012–13	52	11	7	26	8	55	119	151	6th, Bobrov	Alexander Korolyuk (29 points: 15 G, 14 A; 41 GP)	Did not qualify
2013–14	54	12	6	26	10	58	110	147	7th, Tarasov	Maxim Afinogenov (26 points: 12 G, 14 A; 53 GP)	Did not qualify
2014–15	60	20	6	28	6	78	152	186	7th, Tarasov	Mario Kempe (30 points: 13 G, 19 A; 54 GP)	Did not qualify
2015–16	60	17	6	32	3	70	129	166	6th, Tarasov	Maxim Afinogenov (28 points: 15 G, 13 A; 56 GP)	Did not qualify
2016–17	60	26	7	22	5	97	162	158	5th, Tarasov	Alexei Kopeikin (51 points: 21 G, 30 A; 60 GP)	Lost in Conference Quarterfinals, 0–4 (SKA Saint Petersburg)
2017–18	56	17	4	27	8	67	131	160	7th, Tarasov	Alexei Makeyev (38 points: 18 G, 20 A; 55 GP)	Did not qualify
2018–19	62	23	5	27	7	63	134	169	4th, Tarasov	Miro Aaltonen (42 points: 19 G, 23 A; 61 GP)	Lost in Conference Quarterfinals, 0–4 (CSKA Moscow)
2019–20	62	19	8	24	11	65	137	166	3rd, Tarasov	Alexander Semin (38 points: 18 G, 20 A; 50 GP)	Lost in Conference Quarterfinals, 0–4 (SKA Saint Petersburg)
2020–21	60	21	6	28	5	59	155	175	5th, Bobrov	Justin Danforth (55 points: 23 G, 32 A; 58 GP)	Did not qualify
2021–22	48	9	6	20	13	43	121	149	5th, Bobrov	Niko Ojamäki (43 points: 29 G, 14 A; 48 GP)	Did not qualify
2022–23	68	24	10	26	8	76	169	170	3rd, Bobrov	Scott Wilson (39 points: 20 G, 19 A; 66 GP)	Lost in Conference Quarterfinals, 1–4 (Lokomotiv Yaroslavl)
2023–24	68	14	6	40	8	48	133	224	5th, Bobrov	Derek Barach (35 points: 10 G, 25 A; 68 GP)	Did not qualify

Honors

Runners-up

1 ! Vysshaya Liga (1): 2005

Champions

1 ! Wingas Cup (1): 2017

1 ! Lehner Cup (1): 2018

External links

• (Russian) Vityaz Chekhov official website

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