AmurLast season: failed to make playoffs
Amur’s on-going struggles at the foot of the table continued last year and the Khabarovsk club is still struggling to live up to the hopes of its loyal support. This season sees Marat Fakhrutdinov, long regarded as one of the brightest coaches in the VHL, try to break into the top eight. Two Finnish imports are expected to supply the firepower: Kristian Kuusela, 33, has been in impressive form for Tappara Tampere in the last three seasons and is now embarking on his first campaign outside of his homeland. Teemu Ramstedt, 28, managed 3+5=8 points in SKA’s 2013 playoff run and returns to the KHL after a couple of productive seasons at HIFK.
AvangardLast season: lost to Salavat Yulaev in playoff second round
In the past, Avangard hasn’t always been slow to replace head coaches during the season if things weren’t going to plan – but the dismissal of Evgeny Kornoukhov and his replacement with Fyodor Kanareikin barely a week before the season began surely sets a new record. The news was all the more surprising considering that Avangard had announced it had completed its transfer activities for the summer just a few days before. The club’s rationale was that it needed an experienced Russian coach to meet its ambitious aims for the coming season. Kanareikin certainly fits that bill, and it’s great to see him back in the game after his health problems last season. And the coach himself has been straight into action, taking over the team at the Romazan Cup pre-season tournament and lifting the trophy thanks to back-to-back wins over the host, Metallurg Magnitogorsk. “The team accepted me straight away,” he told KHL.ru. “I’ve come into a really good, strong group and there are great expectations ahead us of. In fact, that was crucial for me when I took the job.” There’s been a further boost with reports that Czech international Vladimir Sobotka is heading back to Omsk having previously quarrelled with Kornoukhov and missed pre-season.
For a big club, it’s been a long time since Avangard was seriously contesting the top prizes. Regular contenders for hardware in the Russian Superleague era, when it won gold, two silvers and a bronze in seven seasons, the Omsk team has fared no better than its runner-up spot in 2012 since the foundation of the KHL. But this season, once again, the club’s backers are demanding success.
Viktor Nazarov, governor of Omsk Region and in charge of one of the key contributions to Avangard’s budget, expects a strong campaign. “We always set ourselves ambitious targets,” he told TASS. “So it goes without saying that this team should go deep into the playoffs and compete for the Gagarin Cup. Right now the players are still getting to know each other; soon it’s time for them to play.”
Nazarov reckons the club has shuffled about one third of its roster, creating two new lines in the process. The most significant changes seem to be coming in defense with the arrival of Evgeny Medvedev after a year in Philadelphia and the return of Swedish international Erik Gustafsson after a season in Switzerland. The 27-year-old blue-liner had 22 points in 56 games for Avangard in 2014-15. He also played 100 NHL games for the Flyers and helped Sweden to World Championship gold on home ice in 2013. Medvedev, for so long a lynchpin of Ak Bars’ defense, took the chance to test himself in the NHL last season, making 45 appearances (13 points) for Philadelphia. His honors list includes two Gagarin Cup wins (2009, 2010) and two World Championship golds (2012, 2014) as well as a call-up to Russia’s 2014 Olympic squad.
IIHF 2015 World Championships. Evgeny Medvedev training with Team Russia
Those two arrivals offset the loss of Czech international Michal Kempny, who leaves for Chicago, and experienced club captain Denis Kulyash. The latter moves to Salavat Yulaev, ending a three-season stint with the club where, back in the late 90s, he took his first steps in the game.
Kulyash isn’t the only player to leave behind long associations with Avangard. Alexander Popov made his debut for the Hawks way back in the 1998-99 season and stayed for 18 seasons. The forward has 246 points in 376 regular season KHL games for Avangard and was a regular in Russia’s national teams under Zinetula Bilyaletdinov, who selected him for the Sochi Olympics. But now, at the age of 35, he’s moving to CSKA with fellow forward Mikhail Yunkov heading the other way.
2015 KHL All-Star Game. Erik Gustafsson in SuperSkills contest
The big-name arrival on offense is Denis Roy, who signed from SC Bern, Switzerland. The 33-year-old Ontario native is best known for his years in Buffalo, where he made the bulk of his 738 NHL appearances for the Sabres. He moved on to Dallas at the start of the 2012-13 campaign, and played for five different teams in the subsequent three seasons before heading to Europe last year and posting 30 points in 36 games as he adapted to the bigger ice.
Amid all the high-level transfer activity, though, Nazarov is also keen to see more players emerge from the club’s youth system. “One task that we’ve always set ourselves is bringing kids through from our hockey schools into the first team,” he added. “That’s the key thing that we have to encourage: calling up youngsters to the team and making that the base to build what we want to achieve.”
SibirLast season: lost to Metallurg Magnitogorsk in playoff second round
Previous summers have seen Sibir replacing a host of senior players, but this time around things have been quieter in Novosibirsk. With the team now established as a real contender in the Eastern Conference, this is more of a destination for players than a stepping stone. So Andrei Skabelka has been able to concentrate on adding to his roster. Joonas Kemppainen is the big-name capture, a powerful Finnish center looking to re-establish himself after a tough time at Boston. Evgeny Artyukhin also joins the club, suggesting that Skabelka is looking for more muscle up front. Artyom Artemov, 19, carries high hopes after a good season in Ontario with Saginaw Spirit. On defense, former Sparta Prague man Adam Polasek performed well in his homeland last season and makes his first move to Russia.
Another season, and another chance for Kirill Fastovsky to demonstrate why he’s rated as the smartest GM in the KHL.
The Sibir supremo has garnered a reputation for top-notch trading to keep the Novosibirsk team punching above its weight in the Eastern Conference. A year ago, faced with the departure of the team’s first line, Fastovsky and head coach Andrei Skabelka went back to the drawing board, shuffled the pack and nurtured a new crop of stars. By the end of another season, Sibir had reached the second round of the playoffs and sent Stepan Sannikov off to play at the World Championship. Another success for the Siberians – and this time much of the roster has remained intact.
This summer, the exodus has not been so acute. David Ullstrom, Tomas Vincour and Kalle Ridderwall are the most notable departures among the forwards – but they leave after a season where Sibir shared its scoring liberally, with seven players pitching in with 20 or 30 odd points. This isn’t a club that hires – or can easily afford – stellar forwards; instead it relies on teamwork to get its goals.
Defensively, likewise, there are notable departures but not catastrophic ones. Slovak international Andrej Meszaros leaves after half a season, while some experience departs in the form of Sergei Gimayev (Vitzyaz) and Konstantin Alexeyev (CSKA), but the youthful talent of 21-year-old Ivan Vereshchagin remains. The youngster saw some serious game time last season, posting over 14 minutes in his 54 regular season engagements and notching 13 points to make him the second most productive blue-liner at the club.
Ivan Vereshchagin
Coming in to the club, Finnish center Joonas Kemppainen looks set to fit the template of a solid team player. He’s a big, strong forward, nurtured in the Finnish league. After five seasons with Karpat he got a call from the Boston Bruins, but found it tough to step up to the NHL in a single season and was discarded over the summer. That alerted Sibir to another player with plenty to offer – and perhaps with a point to prove. Observers in Boston noted that he offered as much defensively as he did going forwards, suggesting that the larger European ice might offer more useful outlets for his skating ability.
Eero Elo
He’s joined by his compatriot Eero Elo, who took his KHL bow last season at Avtomobilist. The 26-year-old had a productive regular season, with 18+10 points in 56 games, but failed to score in the playoffs as Avto lost out to Magnitka in six games. There are also two new Russians on the roster: Evgeny Artyukhin needs little introduction after picking up 785 penalty minutes in a colorful KHL career at SKA, Atlant and CSKA; 19-year-old Muscovite Artyom Artemov arrives after leading the scoring at Saginaw Spirit in the Ontario League last season.
Adam Polasek
The key defensive reinforcement is likely to be Adam Polasek, a Czech blueliner who arrives from Sparta Prague. He returned to Europe at the end of 2013 after picking up AHL experience with the Chicago Wolves and the Utica Comets. Last season he had 10+26 points for Sparta.
BarysLast season: failed to make the playoffs
Controversy and Andrei Nazarov tend to go hand-in-hand, so it’s little surprise that the most notorious incident of pre-season involved Nazarov’s Barys team. Just three minutes into the game against Kunlun in the President of Kazakhstan’s Cup, Damir Ryspaev got embroiled in a fight. Or at least, he tried to. Struggling to find a willing combatant from Beijing, he skated around the rink attacking anyone and everyone, even heading to the visitor’s bench in search of a brawl. Kunlun refused to play on, Ryspaev – who has some previous with the league’s disciplinary committee – was handed an indefinite suspension. That overshadowed some decent summer trades, with goalies Henrik Karlsson (ex Jokerit) and Vitaly Kolesnik (Lokomotiv) arriving along with former Slovan D-man Cam Barker. Admiral-bound Vadim Krasnoslobodtsev, a long-standing servant of Kazakh hockey, was the notable departure.
AdmiralLast season: lost to Sibir in playoff first round
Admiral reached last year’s playoff, fulfilling the club’s ambitions for the campaign, and Alexander Andrievsky’s men are largely unchanged over the summer. The most interesting new signing looks to be Robert Sabolic, an experienced Slovenian international forward who comes from Sparta Prague. There’s also a famous name joining the goaltending brigade – Maxim Tretiak, grandson of the legendary Vladislav, has joined from CSKA and will be looking to make his KHL debut in the coming campaign.
Metallurg NovokuznetskLast season: failed to make the playoffs
The big news in Novokuznetsk this summer was the return of local hero Sergei Zinovyev to his hometown club. The predatory forward, once part of the formidable Zinovyev-Morozov-Zaripov troika for Ak Bars and Team Russia, is back at his first club as GM. Hopes in this Siberian mining region are that he can unearth a roster capable of making the playoffs for the first time in the KHL era. But the seam of local talent continues to supply other clubs – Kirill Kaprizov is the latest prospect to move on, heading for Salavat Yulaev. Experienced goalie Mikhail Biryukov is the most prominent new arrival.
Salavat YulaevLast season: lost to Metallurg Magnitogorsk in Conference Final
Igor Zakharkin’s rescue mission last fall revived Salavat’s season and finishing second in the East was no disgrace. The big arrivals this summer are on defense, with Konstantin Korneyev and Denis Kulyash bringing valuable experience to the blue line. Up front the departure of Nikolai Prokhorkin to SKA is a blow, but the arrival of promising 19-year-old Kirill Kaprizov from Novokuznetsk could be something of a straight swap – as one potential star leaves, a new one comes in to replace him.
Kunlun Red StarLast season: did not compete
The league newcomer is bringing the KHL into uncharted territory – never before has hockey of this level been played in China. It’s a boost for both sides: Beijing gets a taste of top-level action as it prepares for the 2022 Winter Olympics, the KHL becomes the first big league to break into the vast Chinese market. On the ice, of course, progress is cautious. Head coach Vladimir Yurzinov has assembled a roster that blends KHL experience – Janne Jalasvaara, Anssi Salmela, Oleg Yashin – with a raft of promising Chinese talent headed by Rudi Ying, one of a small group of local players with North American experience. The likes of French international Damien Fleury add extra seasoning to a multinational mix that has steadily improved through pre-season and will hope to spring a few surprises once the season starts.
After three games and three defeats at a training camp in Finland, Kunlun Red Star moved to Kazakhstan to step up its pre-season preparations. Next week the Chinese team will take part in the President of Kazakhstan’s Cup, Astana’s traditional curtain-raiser. First, though, came a warm-up game against the host team, Barys.
The hockey rivalry between Kazakhstan and China has usually been played out in the Asian Games, with the Kazakhs having much the better of things at international level. And home hopes must have been high going into this first club clash between the oriental nations. Barys, after all, is steeped in KHL experience. By contrast, Kunlun’s first forays onto the ice had brought 0-2 losses against Traktor and Spartak, followed by a 3-5 defeat at the hands of Amur. Those games, played in front of sparse crowds at a training rink in the Finnish provinces, had the feel of practice sessions. In Astana, at the Kazakh capital’s impressive new arena, a larger crowd came along. This one felt like a real game with a real audience.
On this bigger stage, Kunlun showed determination. Despite falling behind to Yaroslav Yedokimov’s power play goal in the last minute of the opening stanza, the newcomer tied it up early in the second through Chad Rau. Then, in the 47th minute, Finnish forward Tuukka Mantyla followed up his goal against Amur – Kunlun’s first ever – with the game winner in his new club’s inaugural victory. Rau got his second of the night late on to complete the scoring.
The game may have been a warm-up, but there was certainly no lack of competitive spirit: the teams traded 196 penalty minutes, most of them coming after a brawl in the 54th minute saw three men from each side handed 5+20 penalties for fighting. The teams are due to meet here again on Monday in the President’s Cup – and there already seem to be some scores to settle.
mFollowing an appeal from Kunlun Red Star of Beijing, the Kontinental Hockey League has decided to impose a lifetime ban on Barys Astana defenseman Damir Ryspayev.
The KHL’s competitions department considered Kunlun’s appeal and also reviewed the incident that occurred during the game on August 8, 2016, between Barys and Kunlun during the President of Kazakhstan’s Cup pre-season tournament. The department reviewed all material connected with the incident.
In reaching a verdict on this incident, the competitions department also studied the opinions of league’s sporting and disciplinary committee and took into account Damir Ryspayev’s previous infractions of the rules of the game.
In accordance with articles 1, 11 and 33 of the disciplinary code of the KHL concerning breaches of rule 527 (extreme roughing) and 528 (fighting or roughing) in the “Rules of the Game of Hockey 2016/17”, Damir Ryspayev was duly handed a lifetime ban from sporting and corporate activity within the league.
This ban cannot be appealed through the courts or any other procedure. However, it may be reversed if the Disciplinary Committee agrees to review any statement from the individual concerned. In addition the KHL paid close attention to the fact that neither the training staff nor the directors of Barys Astana took adequate measures to stop Damir Ryspayev from acting in a manner that violated the rules of the game of hockey.
No comments:
Post a Comment