We haven’t written much about prospects overseas and how their individual seasons are going, but when we saw what happened to Marat Khusnutdinov on Thursday, we knew we had to share it.
The Minnesota Wild’s 2020 second-round pick was playing in SKA St. Petersburg’s first-round matchup against Dinamo Minsk in the Gagarin Cup playoffs, when he went for a gutsy defensive play that got him a a stick whacked right in his face.
Oof. Khusnutdinov pulls off the diving poke check at the buzzer to knock the puck loose, but Duszak is already committed to the slapshot and hits him square in the face with the blade.