The following is the video of Ilya Kovalchuk being injured by a hit from Jarkko Ruutu. The hit was certainly unintentional as Kovalchuk saw Ruutu coming and tried to avoid him.
Ilya didn’t manage to avoid Ruutu completely and left his right knee vulnerable as he ducked out of the way. Ruutu didn’t stick out his leg to catch Kovalchuk’s knee, but Steve McCarthy took exception to seeing his star player hurt and dropped the gloves to take on Ruutu.
It is always a shame to see people injured, but I personally think if Kovalchuk would have stayed put and took the hit like players are taught in Pee-Wee hockey, this whole incident would have been avoided.
What do you think?
I wonder if karma has anything to do with this? I do hope that Ilya is not seriously injured, but it’s interesting that this happened following the recent hit that Kovalchuk put on Rozsival.