To be fair to Dietz, the play was completely unintentional and is simply a product of the physical nature of the game of hockey. As you can see in the clip down below, Kuzmin was skating towards the Avangard net when he threw a backhander on goal. He was subsequently hit by Dietz and went flying into the boards head-first.
Fans in the arena immediately knew it was a bad hit and there was complete silence. Kuzmin was writhing around in pain and it was all very scary. Paramedics jumped onto the ice and were able to stabilize his neck before putting him on a stretcher and taking him out of the arena. He was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance.
His head coach, Viktor Kozlov, confirmed that the injury was quite serious. However, we still do not know its full extent.
For those unfamiliar, Kuzmin is 27 years old and has spent his entire career in the KHL as well as his current team's farm system. He has been loyal to the franchise, and we're sure the fans have a special connection to him. You just hate to see something like this happen.
We hope that Gleb Kuzmin recovers. You never want to see a player go down in such a scary fashion.
Source: HockeyDB
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