Over the next few weeks, Last Word on Sports will be 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 Kharlamov Division of the Eastern Conference. This is part three of our KHL Season Preview.
KHL Season Preview: Kharlamov Division
Ak Bars Kazan
Last year’s Gagarin Cup Finalists are going for another run at the Cup this year with some fresh blood in the lineup. Gone is the top defense pairing of Ilya Nikulin and Yevgeni Medvedev, both over age 30. Also gone is a trio of NHL-bound players in Alexander Burmistrov, Kirill Petrov (for whom the team reportedly rejected an offer of around$3 million from SKA), and Anders Nilsson.
The team went younger this offseason, adding Slovak international Marek Daloga, young up-and-comer Albert Yarullin, and former World Junior Champion Denis Golubev. Jussi Rynnäs looks to replace Nilsson in goal, while Mattias Sjogren adds international experience and goal scoring. With these new names added to a squad already featuring players like scoring dynamo Justin Azevedo and defensive monsters Ziyat Paygin and Stepan Zakharchuk, there is no reason to believe this Tatar side won’t go deep again.
Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg
New head coach, new GM, and many new intriguing pieces have the Sverdlovsk Oblast side as one of the more intriguing ones in the league. Franchise goalie Jakub Kovar, the only goalie in the KHL last season to play every single game, will always give the Motorists a chance at victory.
But the attack is the biggest question mark. An offense that ranked fifth from the bottom last year in goals for loses Anton Lazarev and offensive defenseman Sami Lepisto. In are Finnish sniper Eero Elo, Czech playmaker Ondrej Roman, and Czech power forward Petr Koukal. Tommi Kivisto looks to fill in Lepisto’s spot on the blueline, while Canucks prospect Nikita Tryamkin looks to take a big step up in his fourth KHL season. Avto may not be the sexiest team, but with the duo of Elo and Roman up top and the wall known as Kovar in goal, they’ll sure be an entertaining team in the Eastern Conference.
Lada Tolyatti
Lada didn’t have a fun time in their first year back in the KHL, with one of the league’s worst attacks and the foolish trading of star goalkeeper Ilya Ezhov to SKA. In year two, they look to fix that. The team brought in Ivan Kasutin to backstop them, as he looks to play himself into the picture for the Sbornaya. The team then added four solid defenders to play in front of him, with high-scoring Mark Flood being the big name (though Tobias Viklund, Vyacheslav Belov, and Vladimir Malenkikh are no slouches).
But the main question for Sergei Svetlov‘s team is the same: who will provide the goals? Yuri Petrov led the team with a meager 21 points last season, and only one of the team’s additions at forward (Igor Magogin) managed to best that. While the defense and goaltending should be solid for this team, someone, perhaps Dallas Stars draft pick Denis Guryanov, will have to step up and provide scoring for Lada to make the playoffs.
Metallurg Magnitogorsk
Magnitka remained relatively quiet this offseason, with their only major additions being Wojtek Wolski from Torpedo and youngster Tomas Filippi from the Czech Extraliga. But when you have arguably the best top lines in the league with Sergei Mozyakin, Danis Zaripov, and Jan Kovar, high-scoring defenders like Chris Lee and Viktor Antipin, and one of the league’s best goalies in Vasily Koshechkin, along with a top prospect in Ilya Samsonov, you stick with what works.
The scary part is that Fillipi and Wolski could team up with one of Oskar Osala or Denis Platonov, turning this team into a two-headed monster on the attack. The biggest worry for this team is Father Time, with Mozyakin, Lee, and Zaripov all 34 years old and Koshechkin not far behind at 32. Will these key cogs continue to produce the way they did on the 2014 Gagarin Cup-winning team? Or will time finally catch up with a pair of longtime Russian superstars?
Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk
The Petrochemists had a busy offseason, bidding adieu to top defender Teemu Eronen, two-way forward Matt Anderson, and a bunch of dead weight. In are Americans Jeff Taffe and Tim Kennedy, who Vladimir Krikunov can only hope to be any bit as good as scoring dynamo and fellow American Dan Sexton. Also in are a pair of Belarussians in Andrei Stas and Alexander Kitarov, both of whom struggled to produce last year.
After having the second-worst goals against in the KHL last season, Neftekhimik acquired Avangard shutdown man Kirill Lyamin, along with tough guy Yevgeni Katichev and mammoth youngster Dmitri Ogurtsov, who hope to help goalkeepers Ville Kolppanen and Alexander Sudnitsyn out. Will these three help lower the goals against and bring the playoffs back to Nizhnekamsk? Or will hockey at Nizhnekamskneftekhim be over in March for a third straight season?
Traktor Chelyabinsk
It’s the end of an era in Chelyabinsk, with beloved star goalkeeper Michael Garnett departing for Slovan. The team managed to find a very admirable replacement, picking up Czech international Pavel Francouz, a 25 year old who has dominated the Czech Extraliga in recent years. His backup will be young up-and-comer Vasili Demchenko, who has paid his dues in lower leagues and who looks to push Francouz for playing time.
Maxim Yakutsenya returns to the team he played for until 2013, and looks to add scoring punch up top along with Canadian imports Alexandre Bolduc and Francis Paré and veteran leaders Anton Glinkin and Stanislav Chistov.
The big questions in Chelyabinsk are on the blueline. Deron Quint is aging, and veterans Oleg Piganovich and Yevgeni Katichev are gone. In their places are youngsters Stanislav Kalashnikov, Konstantin Klimontov, and Nikita Khlystov who, despite their KHL experience, still have a lot to prove. Last season, Nikolishin turned around a team that was going nowhere and got them to the playoffs. Now, in his first full season, Nikolishin will look to keep their second half form from last year over an entire season and get the team back to being one of the top teams in the KHL.
Yugra Khanty-Mansiysk
Last season, Yugra was ambitious. They were tired of being one of the most obscure teams in the KHL and went on a spending spree, bringing in names like Brust, Maxwell, Larsen, Rajala, Korolyuk, and Kašpar. Of those names, none remain, and now it’s back to square one for the Mammoths, with a new captain after the depature of Igor Magogin. The biggest name on this team is obviously Nikita Gusev, the small but super-skilled young forward famous for his whirling goal in the All-Star Skills Competition. The team has surrounded him with veterans like Alexei Mikhnov, Igor Volkov, and Andrei Taratukhin.
However, outside of Gusev, nobody on this team is a proven KHL threat. Even goalie Georgi Gelashvili, though All-Star caliber at his best, has been riddled with injury after injury the last few years. Gusev will have to have a mammoth year for this team to escape irrelevance and get back to the postseason. An interesting note on Yugra: one of their junior goalies, Ilya Shevtsov, is deaf, and won gold at the 2013 World Deaf Hockey Championships.
Next week, we’ll take a look at the Chernyshev Division, the final division of the league featuring last year’s surprise team, Sibir Novosibirsk.
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