Valeri Nichushkin opens up about his recent scandal

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Daniel Lucente
July 8, 2024 (2:20 PM)

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Winger Valeri Nichushkin of the Colorado Avalanche has recently come forward and opened up about the scandal allegations surrounding him.

Nichushkin has opened up about his involvement in a scandal during the 2022-2023 NHL playoffs. Valeri was hurt at that time so did not play in his team's games, and admitted to a Russian journalist that he made the wrong decision.

«It was the most difficult season, there were a lot of injuries in the team all season. I missed 2 months due to bursitis. I also had a shoulder injury, which constantly bothered me. I always had problems sleeping, but because of the pain in my shoulder, the situation with my sleep got worse. They did an MRI and they couldn't decide whether to have surgery or not. In the end, they decided not to do it and gave me injections in my shoulder. These injections stopped helping and they decided to inject me with another drug. When we flew to Seattle, they decided that I would not play the match due to a shoulder injury, because I needed to not bother my shoulder for a while until the drug starts working and everyone on the team knew that I would not play until the end of the round. It put a lot of pressure on the psyche and was very annoying. I had friends in Seattle at that moment and I made the wrong decision, we hung out with them at night and in the morning I flew to Denver. This girl in my room has nothing to do with me. The club advised me not to give any comments, and I myself was not emotionally ready to explain all this. This was probably the wrong decision and it was necessary to tell the whole situation right away so that there weren't a bunch of different rumors. If we had made it to the second round, I would have been ready to play.»

Nichushkin is now suspended from playing in any NHL games until November 13th at the earliest. This isn't a great look on a player who has already missed significant time due to injuries. This is not something that the Avalanche wanted, and has definitely tarnished his reputation around the league.

Here we can see Nichushkin is getting ready for what would prove to be a rough night of partying. Unfortunately for the Avalanche, that night out is now going to cost them several more games without Valeri in their lineup.

Credit Col Hockey Now:
Nichushkin Discusses Seattle Incident In Russian Interview