Two former NHL players will be spending parts of their KHL seasons on the sidelines after receiving supplemental discipline for a pair of dangerous hits. The KHL Disciplinary Committee has suspended Dustin Boyd and Evgeny Artyukhin for separate incidents on Saturday, October 3.

 

Barys Astana’s Dustin Boyd

Boyd was suspended four games for an illegal check to the head of Torpedo’s Alexei Pepelyayev. The hit took place 3:36 into the second period of Saturday’s match in Nizhny Novgorod. Referees Eduard Odins and Vladimir Bukin assessed a major penalty plus game misconduct on Boyd during the game. Pepelyayev was injured on the play and did not return to the game.

Boyd spent parts of five seasons in the NHL, suiting up for the Calgary Flames, Nashville Predators, and Montreal Canadiens.

 

SKA St. Petersburg’s Evgeny Artyukhin

Referees Antti Boman and Antonin Jerabek ended Evgeny Artyukhin’s night early on Saturday when SKA St. Petersburg faced off against Traktor Chelyabinsk. Early in the second period, Artyukhin collided with Traktor’s Semyon Afonasyevsky, the latter bearing the brunt of the hit. Artyukhin was sent off with a major and game misconduct for kneeing. He’s subsequently been suspended for one game.

Artyukhin played 199 games in the NHL from 2005-2010 with the Lightning, Ducks, and Thrashers. He was suspended once during his NHL career for slewfooting Stars defenseman Matt Niskanen back in 2009.

The KHL’s been on somewhat of a disciplinary crackdown to start the 2015-16 season.  Just six weeks in, the league has already seen 17 players and one coach suspended: Admiral’s Maxim Manin (1 game, kneeing), Vityaz’s Mario Kempe (2 games, kneeing), SKA’s Vadim Shipachyov (1 game, boarding), Slovan’s Michal Sersen (1 game, slashing), Sibir’s Alexei Kopeikin (1 game, checking from behind), Spartak’s Gleb Klimenko (2 games, check to the head), CSKA’s Igor Makarov (2 games, kneeing), Dinamo’s Guntis Galvins (1 game, slashing), Slovan’s Andrej Stastny (1 game, slashing), Ugra’s Georgy Gelashvili (1 game, slashing), CSKA’s Igor Makarov, again (2 games, kneeing), Torpedo’s Stanislav Yegorshev (2 games, check to the head),  Sibir’s Rinat Ibragimov (1 game, charging), Dinamo’s Krisjanis Redlihs (1 game, kneeing), Vityaz’s Georgy Berdyukov (2 games, boarding), Salavat Yulaev’s Nikolai Prokhorkin (1 game, boarding), Barys Astana’s Yaroslav Yevdokimov (1 game, charging), and Torpedo head coach Peteris Skudra (1 game, abuse of officials), 

(Featured image by Alex Babashov)