There are rumours that Dynamo Moscow head coach Olegs Znaroks could leave his team to concentrate on leading the Russian National Ice Hockey team after this years KHL Playoffs are done.
The Sports Minister and Russian Hockey Federation have made a regulation that the Head Coach of the Russian National Team cannot also coach a club team, and must be dedicated to the National Team full-time. This, of course, means that Znaroks will have to leave the team, which he led to Gagarin Cup Finals twice in a row, in order to accept the new position. Znaroks has previous international experience as he coached The Latvian National Team.
The Russian Hockey Federation decided not to renew the contract of previous head coach Zinatula Bilaletdinov after the Olympics. Not surprisingly the official reason was ”The team he led wasn’t able to reach semi-finals and lost to Finland in quafters (in the Sochi Olympics) which is clearly unacceptable”. Afterwards Bilaletdinov signed with AkBars Kazan to become their new general manager.
According to Olegs Znaroks, its currently just rumours and nothing is done just yet and no contract has been signed. Of course he still would like to work for Dynamo Moscow, and is really doubtful that the team itself will just allow him to go with time remaining on his contract. If it does happen, the next head coach of Dynamo Moscow could be Znaroks long time assistant – Harijs Vitolins, unless of course he will be assisting Olegs in Russian National Team.
Dynamo Moscow are currently facing up against Lokomativ Yaroslavl in the KHL playoffs and lead the best of 7 series 3-1.
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