There are clearly political motives behind SKA coach Roman Rotenberg’s decision that his third-leading scorer cannot help him win hockey games. In SKA’s last 150 minutes of action, Ivan Demidov has been on the ice for fewer than 10 minutes. Today, he was SKA’s 13th forward and played a grand total of four shifts.
Rotenberg who also happens to be the CEO of the hockey club, appears to once again be playing political chess with a young high draft pick who at season’s end will be heading to North America.
Does Rottenberg plan on letting Demidov rot on the bench and in the stands until the season is over, or is he signaling to other teams that, for the right price, Demidov is available? SKA is the richest club in the league, and they can afford to bench any player on the roster and still finish at or near the top of the standings.
Demidov has few options other than to ride it out. He could conceivably buy out his contract, but how would he come up with the cash, and would Rotenberg agree to that? Montreal cannot buy him out, or they would do so in a nanosecond.
Since he is in the last year of his contract, he cannot be loaned to another KHL team. He is clearly too good for a Russian junior, so what is Rotenberg’s master plan? There may be KHL teams struggling near the bottom of the standings who could use Demidov… not only to boost the team but to increase attendance as well. Does Rottenberg think that he can pick up a useful veteran or two that he thinks can help him win another league title and that he knows he will be remaining in Russia for the long term?
The optimal solution may be to join his brother Semyon at SKA’s VHL club, SKA Neva St. Petersburg. Semyon is off to a great start, scoring eight goals in 11 games, tying him for second overall in goals. I would suspect that if he had a choice between playing three minutes a night with SKA or 20 minutes per game beside his brother in Russia’s second-best league, he would choose the latter.
What makes it especially frustrating is that Russia’s ban from international competition because of the Ukraine war means that Demidov can’t even play games for Russia’s U20 team in international events such as the World Junior Championship. He has done nothing to receive such treatment; he was named the KHL’s Rookie of the Month for good reason, as he was a standout when given proper ice time and opportunity despite having few shifts on the power play and playing a third-line role in the first ten games, Demidov was one of SKA’s top three scores when the puzzling decision was made that he wasn’t one of SKA’s top 12 forwards and would sit on the bench.
This has to be political. Rotenberg’s oligarch father has been close friends with Vladimir Putin since childhood, and there is little doubt that both father and son are Russian nationalists of the highest order. Whether it was Matvei Michkov, Nikita Chibrikov, Fedor Svechkov, or Marat Khustnutdinov, all were penalized after being high NHL draft picks and wanting to try their luck in the NHL. It appears that the same is happening with Demidov, as there is no other plausible explanation for his benching.
Hopefully, we will soon find answers to those questions, as it does no one any good to have a young star sitting on the bench.
