KHL - Tarasov Division - ЦСКА Москва

HC CSKA Moscow (ЦСКА Москва. Центральный Спортивный Клуб Армии, Central Sports Club of the Army, Moscow) is referred to in the West as "Central Red Army" or the "Red Army Team" for its past affiliation with the Soviet Army, popularly known as the Red Army. HC CSKA Moscow won more Soviet championships and European cups than any other team in history. It is owned by Russia's largest oil company, Rosneft, which is in turn majority-owned by the Russian government. The club was founded in 1946 as CDKA (Centralnyy Dom Krasnoy Armii – Central House of the Red Army, referring to the Army community centre in Moscow). It was known as CDSA (with Red Army changed to Soviet Army) in 1952 – 1954, as CSK MO (Central Sports Club of the Moscow Military District) in 1955 – 1959, and acquired its current name in 1960.

CSKA won 32 Soviet regular season championships during the Soviet League's 46-year existence, far and away the most in the league's history; no other team won more than five. This included all but six from 1955 to 1989 and 13 in a row from 1977 to 1989. By comparison, no NHL team has won more than five  Stanley Cups in a row since the NHL took de facto control of the trophy in 1926.
CSKA was almost as dominant in the European Cup. They won all but two titles from 1969 to 1990, including 13 in a row from 1978 to 1990. The team's first coach was Anatoli Tarasov, who would later become famous as the coach of the Soviet National Team. Tarasov coached the Red Army Team, either alone or with co-coaches, for most of the time from 1946 to 1975. The team's greatest run came under Viktor Tikhonov, who was coach from 1977 to 1996—serving for most of that time as coach of the national team.
The Red Army Team was able to pull off such a long run of dominance because during the Soviet era, the entire CSKA organization was a functioning division of the Red Army. Taking full advantage of the fact that all able-bodied Soviet males had to serve in the military, it was literally able to draft the best young hockey players in the Soviet Union onto the team. There was a substantial overlap between the rosters of the Red Army Team and the Soviet national team, which was one factor behind the Soviets' near-absolute dominance of international hockey from the 1950s through the early 1990s. By the late 1980s, however, the long run of Red Army dominance caused a significant dropoff in attendance throughout the league.
One of the most feared lines in hockey history was the KLM Line of the 1980s. The name came from the last names of the three players, Vladimir Krutov, Igor Larionov and Sergei Makarov. Together with defensemen Viacheslav Fetisov and Alexei Kasatonov, they were known as the Green Unit because they wore green jerseys in practice. The five-man unit formed a dominant force in European hockey throughout the decade. All five players were later permitted to go to the NHL in 1989, with mixed results. Krutov had the shortest NHL career, lasting only one season in Vancouver; Makarov (who won the Calder Trophy in 1990) and Kasatonov were out of the NHL by 1997; Fetisov and Larionov won the Stanley Cup twice together with Detroit before Fetisov retired in 1998; Larionov would win a third Cup with Detroit in 2002, before retiring from New Jersey in 2004.
Not surprisingly, discipline was quite strict, especially under Tikhonov. His players practiced for as many as 11 months a year, and were confined to training camp (an Army barracks) most of that time even if they were married. However, became less restrictive after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
At the IIHF Centennial All-Star Team, out of 6 players selected 4 players once played at CSKA Moscow.

CSKA and the NHL

CSKA played 36 games against NHL teams from 1975 to 1991 and finished with a record of 26 wins, 8 losses, and 2 ties. 34 of these games were played in Super Series, including the tour of North America in 1975/1976. The Super Series also introduced eventual Hockey Hall of Fame goaltender Vladislav Tretiak of the CSKA squad to North American ice hockey fans. On New Year's Eve 1975, CSKA played the Montreal Canadiens, widely regarded as the league's finest team (and that year's eventual Stanley Cup winners). The game ended with a 3–3 draw, but was widely hailed as one of the greatest games ever played.
Another memorable game was played on 11 January 1976 against the Philadelphia Flyers, who at the time were the defending Stanley Cup Champions and were known as the "Broad Street Bullies" for their highly physical play. The game was notable for an incident where, after a body check delivered by Philadelphia's Ed Van Impe, the CSKA's top player, Valeri Kharlamov (like Tretiak eventually a Hall of Famer), was left prone on the ice for a minute. CSKA coach Konstantin Loktev pulled his team off the ice in protest that no penalty was called. They were told by NHL president Clarence Campbell to return to the ice and finish the game, which was being broadcast to an international audience, or the Soviet Hockey Federation would not get paid the fee that they were entitled to. They eventually complied and lost the game 4–1.
CSKA Moscow alumni have made a large impact on the NHL; perhaps the largest impact came with the Detroit Red Wings of the mid-1990s. Sergei Fedorov, Vladimir Konstantinov, and Vyacheslav Kozlov had established themselves as key members of the Wings when they were joined by Fetisov and Larionov, forming the Russian Five. These five players would play an integral role in the Wings' consecutive Stanley Cup championships in 1997 and 1998. Dmitri Mironov joined the 1998 squad, following Konstantinov's career-ending injury on 13 June 1997; since Konstantinov was kept on the roster despite his injury, the 1998 squad marks the largest contingent of CSKA veterans (six) to win the Stanley Cup.

Post-Soviet history

During the late '80s and early '90s CSKA positions significantly weakened. After a conflict with Tikhonov CSKA major stars including Fetisov, Larionov, Krutov and Kasatonov left the team to make their careers in the NHL. During the 90s they were followed by younger talents like Bure, Fedorov and Samsonov. As For a time in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it was briefly unofficially known as "the Russian Penguins" after the Pittsburgh Penguins bought an interest in the team. In 1996 after a conflict with management of the club Viktor Tikhonov created his own separate team called HK CSKA that spent two seasons in the Russian Superleague and eventually reunited with the original CSKA in 2002.
Although CSKA has remained one of the strongest teams in Russia since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it has yet to win a regular season title in the KHL or its predecessors until 2015, when the club finished 1st in regular season but failed to win the Gagarin Cup. It has never gotten past the conference semifinals of the Gagarin Cup playoffs since the formation of the KHL, and missed the playoffs altogether in 2011. NHL scouts now sign most of the top young prospects in Europe and send them to minor leagues in North America.

Stats
USSR:
Champions (32) – 1948–1950, 1955, 1956, 1958–1961, 1963– 1966, 1968, 1970–1973, 1975, 1977–1989;
Runners-up (10) – 1947, 1952–1954, 1957, 1967, 1969, 1974, 1976, 1990; CIS - 1992;
Cup winners (12) – 1954–1956, 1961, 1966–1969, 1973, 1977, 1979, 1988.
Russia:
Champions – 2015.
KHL:
2008-09 - 5th
2009-10 - 13th
2010-11 - 19th
2011-12 - 16th
2012-13 - 6th
2013-14 - 14th
2014-15 - 3rd
European Cup winners (20) – 1969–1974, 1976, 1978–1990.
Intercontinental Cup winners 1972.
Current Roster

#	Position	Name	Born	Country	Contract
11	forward	Andronov Sergei	19.07.1989	Russia	30.04.2017
35	defense	Blazhiyevsky Artyom	20.03.1994	Russia
9	defense	Bondarev Alexei	09.01.1983	Russia
6	defense	Denisov Denis	31.12.1981	Russia
40	goaltender	Filonenko Andrei	05.05.1995	Russia
40	goaltender	Galimov Stanislav	12.02.1988	Russia	30.04.2016
59	forward	Hjalmarsson Simon	01.02.1989	Sweden	30.04.2016
55	defense	Kiselevich Bogdan	14.02.1990	Russia	30.04.2016
8	forward	Korotkov Evgeny	10.12.1987	Russia	30.04.2016
-	defense	Kucherov Vadim	09.01.1996	Russia
18	forward	Kugryshev Dmitry	18.01.1990	Russia
45	defense	Kutuzov Alexander	23.11.1985	Russia
-	forward	Kvartalnov Danila	07.07.1997	Russia
13	forward	Lyubimov Roman	01.06.1992	Russia	30.04.2016
86	forward	Makarov Igor	19.09.1987	Russia
-	defense	Makkayev Georgy	26.03.1995	Russia
38	defense	Naumenkov Mikhail	19.02.1993	Russia
92	defense	Ozhiganov Igor	13.10.1992	Russia
57	defense	Panin Grigory	24.11.1985	Russia
19	forward	Pereskokov Vadim	27.08.1993	Russia
47	forward	Radulov Alexander	05.07.1986	Russia	30.04.2016
86	forward	Sharov Alexander	05.11.1995	Russia
-	goaltender	Shupinsky Denis	18.01.1996	Russia
16	forward	Stolyarov Gennady	20.08.1986	Russia
7	forward	Telegin Ivan	28.02.1992	Russia	30.04.2016
53	forward	Timiryov Alexander	10.03.1994	Russia
82	defense	Vorobyov Kirill	11.02.1995	Russia
91	forward	Yunkov Mikhail	16.02.1986	Russia
22	defense	Zaitsev Nikita	29.10.1991	Russia

CSKA Ice Palace
Leningradsky Prospect. 39/41, Moscow, Russia, 123167
Built in 1964, it was heavily renovated in 1991 and currently has a capacity of 5,600 seats. The arena is located next to Khodynka Field.