KHL enters 5th year

Last year the first game of the season was blighted by the plane crash of Lokomotiv Yaroslavl's team on its way to their first regular season game against Dinamo Minsk. The first game was stopped and start of the season delayed. KHL made some additions to the rules to help Lokomotiv to rebuild the team. For three seasons they could have 6 foreig players in their roster (one more than other teams), had a priority to sign contract with UFAs after season-2011/12, and other rights at junior drafts.

Lokomotiv returns with new head coach Tom Rowe, a new team where the leaders will be former defenseman Vitaly Vishevsky, Alexei Kalyuzhny, Viktor Kozlov, Vitaly Kolesnik. In fact they have a good team, which consist of experienced and young-talented players. Question is only what’s Tom Rowe as head coach and how foreigners could perform?

Dynamo Moscow will try protect their title. The main loss of preseason is Finnish forward Leo Komarov who decided to check himself in Toronto Maple Leafs. Three players return to Dynamo, they’re forwards Alexei Tsvetkov, Konstantin Kasyanchuk and D-man Roman Derlyuk. The main transfer luck is best goal scorer of Elitserien AIK forward Richard Gynge who showed himself well in preseason games in line with Tsvetkov and Denis Kokarev. Dynamo looked good in the last preseason tournament in Moscow, and should be in a good shape before the game against Avangard.

What about Avangard? After the season they extended contract with Raimo Summanen but soon it was cancelled because of the problems between management and Summanen that appeared. Avangard looked for a new head coach, and they found him again in Finland – Petri Matikainen of HIFK Helsinki. Matikainen visited Omsk, signed a contract and suddenly returned to his native country, why? He still has a contract with HIFK. After negotiations week later Matikainen ruled first training session at Switzerland where Avangard had a camp.

Who also can be a favorite for the season? It goes without saying SKA Saint-Petersburg which will try to win Gagarin Cup. They don’t make some loud signings, took from Barys D Kevin Dallman and some more players dotted improving roster. The losses seemed to be more significant: young forwards Vladimir Tarasenko and Viktor Tikhonov, Swede Matthias Weinhandl, defensemen Vitaly Vishevsky, Kirill Koltsov and Denis Denisov. SKA will try again to make their dream, but it obvious that this team will be on the top of Western conference.

The main newsmaker of preseason is CSKA Moscow. Team changed their management Igor Yesmantovich became general director, former player Sergei Fyodorov the new general manager. Main sponsor of the club is Rosneft which brings a lot of money. The big deal is signing forward Alexander Radulov who unlucky played for the Nashville Predators at the end of season-2011/12. But other signing is going to be stranger forwards Denis Arkhipov and Oleg Kvasha, elder brother of Igor Radulov, Patrick Davis. More than that they lost some young guys like Nikita Kucherov who decided to play in CHL next year. Looking at the roster you can see that CSKA have only one good line Maenpaa-Guskov Radulov-Persson-Shirokov but for great deals you need something more convincing.

The Western conference will be more interesting because of three new clubs: Slovan Bratislava, HC Lev Praha and Donbass Donetsk. The Slovak team has not so bright perspectives to make play-offs in debut season, except two other newcomers which during the preseason showed their strength especially Lev Praha who won 7 games in a row with a 33-11 score, but then lost three.

What happened at the East?

Ak Bars Kazan, two time winner of Gagarin Cup, was the worst team during pre-season. They signed a contract with a new head coach Valery Belov who helped and helps Zinetula Bilyaletdinov in the National Team of Russia. They lost Finnish old-timer Petri Vehanen who helped the team to win the second Cup but they invited MVP of 2011 playoffs goalie from Atlant Konstantin Barulin, added to him young prospect Maxim Mayorov and two Finns Janne Pesonen and Janne Lahti. Bad preparation could reflect on the mood and shape of the team in first games.

One of the best teams of preseason became Metallurg Magnitogorsk with their new head coach Paul Maurice, former Carolina Hurricanes coach. Last week they won their home tournament Romazan Memorial beating Traktor Chelyabinsk, Ak Bars and a special Romazan Team. Magnitogorsk roster looks interesting due to some young Russian guys, some new foreigners in good age like Mats Zuccarello, Cal O’Reilly, Justin Hodgman. Metallurg will have some common with Lokomotiv Yaroslaval, cause both head coaches works in one team for years. Plus for Magnitogorsk that Maurice worked more like coach not scout.

The winner of last regular season Traktor Chelyabinsk works weird this summer. They lost forward Anton Burdasov who moved to SKA. The reason is contract, Traktor offer Burdasov a salary in 10 times lower than have the main star Yevgeny Kuznetsov, Burdasov doesn’t think that he played worse in 10 times and left Chelyabinsk. Then they released Raymond Giroux and took forward Juhamatti Aaltonen who played some years for Magnitogorsk. What else? Forwards like Radik Zakiyev, Alexander Suglobov, Vadim Berdnikov who don’t have a guaranteed place in line-up at not so big clubs in league. For what? It’s not good when team representatives talks about salaries of players when they are hidden - unlike in North America.

As it has been said, the most interesting conference will be Western where all teams could make it to the playoffs, even Vityaz who decided to play hockey this year, even Spartak who looked really bad last season, but return leaders of last years. The East is more likely to be predictable, but outsider of last season Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg made a good addition this preseason, unconditional outsider of the season would be Metallurg Novokuznetsk who had a financial problems and will more likely to play by young guys.

5th season of KHL is going to be most exciting in history of the league. For the first time the league can count with 26 teams of 7 European countries. Teams will play 676 games, each club will compete in 52 games: 2 games (one home – one away) with every team of the league + 2 games in special pairs. 14 teams will compete in the West, and 12 in the East. From each conference 8 teams will move to playoffs that will start 20 February and ended 19 Apr when 7 game of Gagarin Cup final could be played.

 

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