First the good news: Dynamo Balashikha swept their final series 4-0 and won the VHL championship. Now the bad news: Nikolai Chebykin played eight seconds of the final game, part of one shift, and I can’t find out why. He had been playing 12-15 shifts per game in the final round, but hadn’t notched any points.
In the third game of the series, he was judged to be the instigator in a fight and got a game misconduct, so that might be why he didn’t play. With the European system of 13 forwards dressed for a game, you can bench one player for the whole game and not be short-handed.