Over the last few weeks, Last Word on Sports has been previewing the new Kontinental Hockey League season ahead of the season opener on August 24, between SKA Saint Petersburg and CSKA Moscow. Today, we will look at the Chernyshev Division of the Eastern Conference. This is the final part of our KHL season preview for all 28 of the league’s teams.
Admiral Vladivostok
It’s been a rather tumultuous offseason in Primorsky Krai, as Admiral lost most of its front office staff and a number of players to their rivals to the northeast, Amur. However, the Vladivostok side didn’t hesitate to replace them. Former Dinamo Minsk Head Coach Alexander Andriyevsky was installed as head coach and the team went into the transfer market looking to replace the depth they lost to Khabarovsk (as well as Richard Gynge, who went back to Sweden).
In is former World Junior Champion Igor Bobkov in goal, along with Jonathon Blum and Oskars Bartulis on the blueline. Niclas Bergfors returns up top, and the team added troubled Nikita Filatov and KHL All-Star Pascal Pelletier to help him out, and exacted some revenge on Amur by snagging one of their top scorers in Dmitry Lugin. After missing the playoffs by one point last year, Admiral’s goal is to get back there in 2016.
Amur Khabarovsk
As was discussed earlier, Amur wound up poaching most of Admiral’s front office and coaching staff, including President Alexander Mogilny and Head Coach Sergei Shepelev, as well as a number of players including Jan Kolar, Yevgeni Grachyov, and Tom Wandell.
But the biggest coup for Amur this offseason may be coming not from Vladivostok, but from Finland, as the team landed Juha Metsola from Tappara. Metsola was last year’s Liiga goalkeeper of the year, and with a goalie of his pedigree in net along with a retooled defense, Amur has done a fantastic job of improving last year’s league-worst defense (207 goals against). Now the question is: can someone step up and improve last year’s second-worst offense and bring playoff hockey back to Khabarovsk?
Avangard Omsk
Heart-and-soul captain Sergei Kalinin has left for the NHL, and it’s time for Yastreby to move on from him and focus on the present. Avangard is one of the many KHL teams jumping in on the Czech goalie trend, picking up young Dominik Furch from Slavia Prague, and he looks to give fellow youngsters Denis Kostin (20 years old) and Oleg Shilin (24) competition in the crease to fill the void left by Konstantin Barulin.
Swedish international and former MODO captain Jonas Ahnelov, along with Czech newcomer Michal Kempny and Gagarin Cup winner Yuri Alexandrov look to help replace the departed Erik Gustafsson on the blueline, and the team’s already-impressive attack was bolstered with the addition of Ilya Zubov. Now Avangard must answer the question: will the real starting goalie please stand up? The lack of a quality starting goalie cost the team a playoff spot in 2014, and if none of Furch, Kostin, or Shilin step up, all the progress the team has made to restore their status as a Gagarin Cup contender will be dissolved.
Barys Astana
A stunning new arena, a new head coach, and a few new additions make the Kazakh side one of the more intriguing teams in the KHL. In is Keaton Ellerby to bolster the back line, as well as veteran forwards Martin St. Pierre and Vadim Krasnoslobodtsev, who look to help expand Barys’s attack beyond the team’s top line.
Speaking of said top line, the trio of Brandon Bochenski, Dustin Boyd, and Nigel Dawes (combined: 165 points) all return, as does top defender Mike Lundin and starting goalie Jan Laco, and Kazakh staples Talgat Zhailauov and Roman Starchenko. Now, new head coach Yerlan Sagymbayev must get more out of his bottom three lines and improve one of the league’s most inconsistent defenses. If he can do that, Barys could very well open their beautiful, brand-new Barys Arena with a Gagarin Cup championship run.
Metallurg Novokuznetsk
Kuznya has also jumped in the Czech goalie craze, replacing the departed Rafael Khakimov with former Sparta Praha man Filipp Novotny, who will compete with Nikita Lozhkin for the starting gig. Also interesting is the return of Kristian Kudroc, who missed all of last season after collapsing in a preseason game.
However, last season’s worst attack did not do much to get better; the team even lost their second-leading scorer, Ansel Galimov, to Dynamo Moscow, as well as Head Coach German Titov to Spartak. The KHL is a league that has quickly been moving forward, but it seems like Kuznya will be left in the dust yet again.
Salavat Yulaev Ufa
After a very uneven season in which they were bounced from round one, Salavat Yulaev, under the guidance of new GM Leonid Vaisfeld, dove into the transfer market and started signing some top KHL players. When the dust settled, the Bashkir side had added Sami Lepisto, Niklas Svedberg, Rafael Khakimov, Zakhar Arzamastsev, Andreas Engqvist, Igor Grigorenko, Linus Omark, Enver Lisin, Nikolai Prokhorkin, and Sergei Soin.
With all of these new faces, it’s put up or shut up time for new Head Coach Anatoli Yemelin, in his first gig with a “major” club after stints with Amur, Kuznya, and Avtomobilist. Can he put all these new faces together and go deep in the playoffs? Or will he be out of his element, leading to another mediocre season in Bashkortostan?
Sibir Novosibirsk
It’s quite debatable that no team was hit harder by the transfer market than last year’s Chernyshev Division champions. Out is their entire top line of Dmitri Kugryshev, Jonas Enlund, and Jarno Koskiranta. Out are top defenders Patrik Hersley, Igor Ozhiganov, and Vyacheslav Belov.
However, Sibir is a team one can never discount; after losing their best player, Jori Lehtera, to the NHL in 2014, the team responded with a surprise division title and conference final run. In addition, there are some newcomers, including Calle Ridderwall and promising Damir Zhafyarov up top and Vladimir Roth and Rinat Ibragimov on the blueline. Most importantly, the Siberians still have All-Star goalie Alexander Salak, and now for the full season. Andrei Skabelka‘s side silenced doubters last year in a surprise run to the Gagarin Cup semifinals. Now, after all these major losses, they have to prove that last year was no fluke.
That’s all 28 teams, in a nutshell. There will be more KHL featured here on Last Word on Sports ahead of the start of the new campaign on August 24.
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