During his second KHL game, former Stanley Cup champion and Detroit Red Wings legend Pavel Datsyuk scored his first goal in the league. In the game against Salavat Yulaev Ufa, which SKA St. Petersburg won with a 7-1 score, Datsyuk needed only 30 seconds to get the puck in the back of the net with a nice backhander after a pass from Ilya Kovalchuk.
Later in the game, Datsyuk added a couple of helpers, on the 2nd goal of the game by Vyacheslav Voynov and the sixth goal by Kovalchuk, who had a six-point night, scoring a hat-trick and three assists.
Datsyuk, 38, plays on the team’s first line with Kovalchuk and former Pittsburgh Penguins and Arizona Coyotes forward Sergei Plotnikov.
During his first game, Datsyuk, who was elected team captain, had no points in a 2-1 OT loss to Traktor Chelyabinsk. The OT GWG was scored by former Vancouver Canucks prospect Kirill Koltsov, and Datsyuk made the highlights after getting a “welcome to the KHL” hit by Traktor defenseman Nikolai Belov.
SKA St. Petersburg is one of the front runners for the Gagarin Cup title. Their roster features other players of interest like Nikolai Prokhorkin, Igor Shestyorkin, and Alexander Dergachyov. You can track all the NHL prospects playing in the KHL by clicking here.