From Jessie Spector at the Blueshirts Blog:

Alex Frolov’s comments about Sean Avery dropping racial slurs on the ice were big news today, not least of all to Alex Frolov.

In Germany as he trains for the upcoming KHL season with Siberian team Avangard Omsk, Frolov was stunned to learn that he had caused such a stir with words that he did not say.

“I didn’t have a chance to read the article,” Frolov told the Daily News by phone. “Something in the Russian newspaper about Aves. They asked me about Aves and I said he’s a friend of mine and a really nice guy. What I said was that he, in the past, used to have problems where he could say something, but he’s a really nice person and good friend of mine.”

The notion of Avery getting into trouble with his mouth was hardly groundbreaking, but the interview with Frolov on sport.ru quoted the former Rangers left wing as saying that Avery “called opponents ‘black monkeys.’” Frolov vehemently denied having said that.