Regardless of your stance on fighting, there are times when even a fight can be labelled as nothing other than “Stupid”. Barely 20 seconds long, Viktor Tikhonov was laid flat on his behind during a fight with James Wright of Medveščak, and even his team mates gave him a look of exasperation as the referees peeled the bodies apart. This fight was dumb, and pointless.
Now we know Viktor Tikhonov is a smart man, and rumors indicate that he will soon be on his way back to the NHL. A former captain and first line winger, he’s an essential part of SKA St. Petersburg. It’s a gap they are still struggling to fill, not just for his offensive talents but also his work on the penalty kill, and his skills as a versatile two-way forward while SKA are lacking veteran defencemen. So, Tikhonov putting himself in the box while SKA were barely holding onto a two-goal lead might seem like a decision that could hurt his club. Especially since SKA has dropped two previous home games, both of those games being blown leads.
What elevates the level of stupidity is that Viktor Tikhonov had previously injured his hand in a fight. With SKA already injury hit on the defensive side of things and the playoffs straight around the corner, losing Tikhonov would be detrimental. He was questioned on the previous injury in the post game interview on 2/2/2015;“Maybe. In such moments you don’t think about that, you are full of emotion. Only afterwards did that come into my head”. Now dear Tikhonov, beloved former captain of SKA, please think before you destroy your hand again. It’s been an injury filled season for you and the little regard for your own safety is confusing. SKA have fourth liners; they have bigger players who can fight on the team. Fighting is not going to be what makes or breaks a game or a playoff series. Going after someone who has height and weight advantage on you, who’s been fighting in the NHL and KHL far more than you have, is dumb. The after thought of it being maybe detrimental won’t help when SKA is down its top line winger amongst other injuries already suffered.
And why did he fight? Did Wright do anything big to him? No. Tikhonov stated in the same post game interview that he “Wanted everyone to start that stanza with a lot of energy.” And yes, the energy was so great after Tikhonov was laying flat on the floor after taking a jab to the head that Medveščak scored on the 42nd minute, just over a minute after the fight had been cleared up and Medveščak made it a one goal game. The energy that Tikhonov had wanted seemed to go to the other team. His opinions whether the fight helped? ” I don’t know, but as I have already said, the most important thing is that we managed to win”, barely admitting that he made a really stupid move and tried to cover it up with the victory, despite Medveščak outshooting SKA in the third period and great goaltending from Igor Shestyorkin. Just because SKA won a game against a team they should be winning against is not justification for risking yet another injury when you’ve only just come back from a previous injury. It’s frustrating to see an important player doing something really dumb.
The sad part is that he seems to have the idea that he would do something like this again. “I hope that my fight helped the team out, and if needed I will do it again.” It worries me because Tikhonov has demonstrated that fighting isn’t his specialty and in almost every other instance the other team scored the next goal. It worries me because losing Tikhonov in the playoffs would be a massive dagger in the side for SKA. Tikhonov is not a fighter and he’s not a fourth liner. I know there are times when you or someone else needs to drop the gloves but there was nothing there, no dangerous check to the head like what happened to Artemy Panarin against CSKA. There was no goalie running in which Alexander Salak had to defend himself against, twice. It was a pointless fight that could have ended badly for Tikhonov. All you did was let Medveščak back in the game. And that was really, really dumb.
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