Pavel Buchnevich is a New York Rangers prospect (drafted in 2013) playing for SKA in the Kontinental Hockey League. And boy did he make a ballsy play late in their Gagarin Cup playoff game against Lokomotiv on Tuesday.

First off, let’s note the most important sidebar to this main story: Ilya Kovalchuk, the former New Jersey Devils star and arguably the biggest name in the KHL, was scratched by SKA coach Sergei Zubov for their second playoff game against Lokomotiv, which won the first game in overtime. It was a message sent to Kovy and to the players, as their captain “trained individually” away from the team.

So winning this Game 2 was a pretty big deal for the SKA coaches, after this controversial scratch. And they had a 3-1 lead late in the third period … when Buchnevich lost his cool and decided to give Daniil Apalkov of Lokomotiv, who had just scored to cut the deficit to 3-1, an ill-advised cup check after a faceoff.

Apalkov grabbed his boys and doubled over in pain – or at least appeared to, as the referee’s arm went up. Buchnevich was given a match penalty and a game misconduct. Which meant that Lokomotiv would get a 5-minute power play with 16:23 left in the playoff game.

Staffan Kronwall scored on that power play to cut it to 3-2, but that’s as far as Lokomotiv would get. SKA, sans Kovalchuk, won the game, and Buchnevich escaped wearing the goat horns for his nutty penalty.

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Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

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