For years, Salavat Yulaev Ufa have been one of the KHL’s model franchises. Having won the final Russian Super League championship in 2008, the Bashkir side won trophies in each of their first three KHL seasons (two Continental Cups and one Gagarin Cup). In addition, they won at least one playoff series in five of the league’s eight seasons. Many stars have hit the ice at Ufa Arena, names that befit a KHL All-Star team. Radulov. Koltsov (two of them!). Perezhogin. Thoresen. Tverdovsky. Yeryomenko. Zinovyev. The list goes on.
The team had an out-of-character season in 2014-15, as they failed to replace departed homegrown star Andrei Vasilevsky. They finished a disappointing sixth in the Eastern Conference and fell to Magnitogorsk in the playoffs fairly early.
This led to massive changes. GM Oleg Gross was gone, as was head coach Vladimir Yurzinov Jr. and the rest of his coaching staff. In was the brains of the recent rise of Avtomobilist, with GM Leonid Vaisfeld and head coach Anatoly Yemelin, who helped a team that finished in the KHL’s cellar in 2012/13 resurrect almost immediately into a playoff team. Along with those two came a busy transfer market, as Vaisfeld and Yemelin looked to build a team that fit their system. Out was aging Finn Antti Pihlstrom and NHL prospect Anton Slepyshev, along with former All-Stars Igor Skorokhodov and Andrei Zubarev, and in came a myriad of new signings, including the return of Igor Grigorenko and not one but two starting-caliber goalies in Niklas Svedberg and Rafael Khakimov. Other notable adds included Sami Lepisto, Linus Omark, and perhaps most interestingly, Kings prospect and former KHL All-Star Nikolai Prokhorkin.
The results so far have been incredibly disappointing. While it is VERY early in the season, the Ufans may be the front runners for the biggest disappointment in the league so far. With a single win and only that, they’re tied for second-last in the KHL East with Yugra Khanty-Mansiysk and Lada Tolyatti, two teams that spent at least one season in the KHL era in the VHL. That’s not the kind of company Salavat have had in recent years; that company is usually the powerhouses like Dynamo Moskva and Ak Bars Kazan.
So where’s it all going wrong?
It’s quite simple – the defending has been comical at times for the Bashkir side. 19 goals against in 5 games played was not in the plans, and it’s not like they’re getting murdered in the shot department: at 120 shots for and 123 against, it’s virtually even in that department, and favors Salavat if you exclude the outlying 25 shots against and 13 for against Avangard on 3 September. The coverage in the defensive zone has been laughable at times, with lots of puck watching and not enough pressure. Svedberg’s .853 save percentage through four games (including one where he was ejected) isn’t helping matters, either, although the extremely low sample size benefits him.
Yes, it’s only 5 games in. Yes, it may just be a massive overreaction to a slow start. But this slow start can’t last for much longer, or else it will doom Salavat in February and March’s playoff race. Anatoly Yemelin has a lot of problems to fix, and he needs to fix them fast or Salavat Yulaev is going
