Playing for Team Jagr during the KHL’s All-Star festivities, Kulyash easily earned them the win over Team Yashin in the hardest shot competition with his 110.3 mph blast on his second attempt.  That not only earned his team the point, but it also earned the 27-year-old Russian defenseman a spot in the record books for the hardest shot ever, breaking Chara’s previous mark.  Not bad for the former 8th-round pick of the Nashville Predators.

Hat Tip – [Online Sports Guys]

After the first fight, there were a bunch of penalties handed out, but play resumed.  After the second fight more penalties were handed out but somehow play resumed.  The third fight ended with pretty much every player being ejected and neither team having enough players left to take the ice, so the game was called off.  By the way, this all happened within the first 4 minutes of the game, although I’m pretty sure the fans don’t feel cheated.  They got to see a great brawl.

The background for this fight is that the two teams, Avangard Omsk and Vityaz Chekhov, had some bad blood during warmups that spilled over into the game:

It was established as a fact that during pre-game warm-ups Vityaz’s Darcy Verot(notes) intentionally shot a puck at Avangard’s Lasse Kukkonen(notes). Right after that happened, Alexander Svitov(notes) decided to stand up for his teammate and some pushing and shoving and word exchanges occurred. Team coaches managed to calm their players down with referees handing out warnings. [Puck Daddy]

You know its bad if it starts in warmups.  The league is obviously investigating the incident and has already handed out a number of fines and suspensions.  Apparently the KHL feels that Vityaz is mostly to blame for instigating the brawl.  At least no one got knocked out or seriously injured I guess.

Hat Tip Video – [Puck Daddy]

This year Jagr has had to endure alot while playing in Russia, one of his teammates and New York Rangers prospect “Alexei Cherepanov” died during a game, his head coach “Wayne Fleming” quit during the middle of another game and the league who is owned my natural gas company Gazprom is trying  to find ways to stay afloat while the world economy takes a beating.

“You could write a book about it,” Jagr said of his season during a telephone interview from Moscow. “But I’m fine. I’m doing good. I’m happy.”

“There are no problems with our team,” Jagr said. “The organization is good. They take care of the players. The league is good. The level of hockey here is very good, better than I expected.”

After all these tragedies it’s only fitting that reports speculate that Jaromir Jagr wants to return to the NHL and play for the team that originally drafted the Pittsburgh Penguins.  Rumors are swirling that he will agree to play for the league minimum and $350,000 just to play for his buddy Mario Lemieux.

We never understood why he would leave the NHL to play for Avangard Omsk in the KHL, many teams in the NHL would have loved to have a player like Jagr on their team.  You can bet that he easily would have received $6 plus million per year, the Edmonton Oilers reportedly offered Jagr a contact that would have paid him $7 million a season and he turned it down.

“I was thinking about it and if Mario would call me and say, ‘I’d like you to play for our team,’ I would think about it a lot,” Jagr said in a telephone interview from Moscow where the Kontinental League will hold its inaugural All-Star Game outdoors at Red Square Saturday. “I would play for the minimum salary. I would play for $350,000 just for him because I owe him my hockey life. I want to pay him back because he has made me what I am…besides my parents.” From Ken Campbell’s Blog at The Hockey News

Jaromir Jagr in a Pittsburgh Penguins jersey, playing alongside Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin do you believe it?  We’ll just have to wait and see if the rumors come to fruition.