Admiral's Contour: Vladivostok club almost reached the KHL playoffs
Two and a half weeks are left until the end of the KHL regular season. Almost all the participants of the playoffs have been determined. So, on March 4, as a result of Admiral Vladivostok's home victory over Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk with a score of 1:0, the intrigue in the Eastern Conference almost ended — now the club from Tatarstan is unlikely to be able to cling to the top eight. SKA St. Petersburg continues to experience a crisis, and even the recent away overtime victory over CSKA Moscow (3:2) does not help the club from the Northern capital much to get closer to the leaders of the conference. In addition, Roman Rotenberg's wards have once again lost their main star, Evgeny Kuznetsov. Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg is scheduled to play in a new home arena for the first time in its history at the end of the week. Meanwhile, Salavat Yulaev Ufa striker Joshua Livo continues to move towards Sergey Mozyakin's record for goals in one regular season.
The fight for the playoffs
In mid-February, it seemed that the intrigue in the fight for places in the playoffs had been killed. But a series of bright victories by Nizhnekamsk Neftekhimik gave reason to think that this team could still catch up with someone from the top eight in the East - Vladivostok Admiral or Novosibirsk Siberia. Fortunately, the Nizhnekamsk team had to play four face-to-face matches with the club from the capital of Primorye, a victory in which would give them the opportunity to get close to the Mariners.
But Neftekhimik made it difficult for itself to solve the problem already at the beginning of the Far Eastern away series, when it lost twice to Amur Khabarovsk, who lost their playoff chances - 4:5 in overtime and 3:4 after shootouts. But then Oleg Leontiev's team at least managed to score one point each due to draws in regular time.
And the first face-to-face match with Admiral ended with a minimal defeat after 60 main minutes. Now Neftekhimik is 10 points behind the Primorsky team with seven matches to go. Even victories in the three remaining face—to-face matches will not help Nizhnekamsk much - they need to win other meetings themselves, and also expect Admiral to suffer defeats in games with other teams.
If Leonid Tambiev's team wins at home against Neftekhimik on March 6, they will ensure their entry into the playoffs. And they will deprive the public of intrigue for the last two regular season matches, which are scheduled to take place with Nizhnekamsk on their site on March 21 and 23. Neftekhimik, in turn, still has a chance to catch up with the extremely unstable Siberia.
The gap from her is six points, despite the fact that Novosibirsk played one less match. Since mid-February, they have won just one match out of seven. But, according to experts, Vadim Epanchintsev's wards are not in such a deep crisis to miss a playoff berth.
- It's too early to finally bury Neftekhimik, but in general I don't see how it can rise to the playoff zone, — Vladimir Krikunov, the former head coach of Nizhnekamsk, shared his opinion with Izvestia. — Sibir still has a fairly experienced squad, which is able to turn on at the right moment. Yes, Novosibirsk's results are unstable, but they need to try very hard to miss out on a place in the top eight. Moreover, the upcoming calendar is quite convenient — trips to Barys, Lada and Vityaz, who lost their playoff chances. If you don't score points there, then I don't know where. As for Admiral, even if I lost to Neftekhimik, I did not see what could prevent it from reaching the playoffs. The team has been consistently in the top eight all season, Tambiev knows how to squeeze the maximum out of the players. And I am sure that he will mobilize them for the remaining matches, so Vladivostok will score the necessary number of points to reach the playoffs.
In the Western Conference, the Chinese Kunlun Red Star had a good chance back in January to catch up with Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod and oust it from the playoff zone. But a series of defeats led to the fact that the wards of Mikhail Kravets lagged behind the competitor. However, on March 5, they retained their chances after a guest victory over Spartak Moscow.
Meanwhile, the other day, Sport-Express published information that the Chinese club could be headed next season by one of the brightest managers in the history of the KHL, Alexander Krylov. He was chairman of the board of directors of the Omsk Avangard for five years, winning the Gagarin Cup 2021 with him and reaching the finals in 2019, as well as building a new modern arena in Omsk.
After his retirement in the summer of 2023, Krylov did not appear in public, but recently attended a match between Spartak and Avangard Omsk in Moscow. In an interview with Match TV, he neither confirmed nor denied the rumors about the appointment to Kunlun, but noted that this club should play in China. According to Sport-Express, Krylov may be appointed for three seasons — the first will be held in Mytishchi, and then the club will return to the Celestial Empire and will play in Shanghai. At the same time, his budget will be significantly increased, raising the payroll to the salary ceiling of 900 million rubles.
SKA and intrigue in the West
In the Western Conference, Lokomotiv Yaroslavl has only one victory left to secure first place. And almost certainly, the Railwaymen will win the entire regular season. But from second to seventh places, it is still not clear how the positions will be distributed.
The teams show extremely unstable results. Another crisis in the St. Petersburg SKA is causing a special stir. It's not the first time this season that the Army team has lost several matches in a row. Then they score spectacular victories, and it seems that they are gradually finding their game. But at the junction of February and March, Roman Rotenberg's team fell into a hole again.
She suffered four defeats in a row — at home from Kunlun (4:6), Spartak (2:7) and Dynamo Moscow (0:1), and then lost away to Dinamo Minsk (1:2). It was only on March 4 that SKA was able to break the series by winning the army derby against CSKA in overtime (3:2).
Meanwhile, after the defeat by Kunlun, the most famous KHL player Evgeny Kuznetsov dropped out of the squad again. At the end of December, he went to the infirmary for a long time due to a concussion. The forward's return took place on February 11. But after February 22, the 2018 Stanley Cup winner does not go on the ice again.
The club refers to health problems. There was even talk that these were the consequences of the December injury. At the same time, insiders began to appear in the media about Kuznetsov's disciplinary problems. It was even said that SKA was going to break up with him. But Roman Rotenberg said that the club is counting on Evgeny, while he could not say whether the hockey player will play this season.
Anyway, SKA is still in seventh place, which, taking into account the personnel and financial capabilities of the club, can be called the main sensation of the season. He is already four points behind Dinamo Minsk, which closes the top four in the West, and risks starting the first round of the playoffs not with a home match. At the same time, SKA played two more games than Minsk.
And one game more than Dynamo Moscow and CSKA, which are eight and six points behind, respectively. St. Petersburg is also inferior to Spartak and Cherepovets Severstal. These two teams, like Minsk, played two fewer matches than SKA. If not for the last victory over CSKA, Rotenberg's team could have been in eighth place. However, even now Torpedo is only five points behind the club from the Northern Capital with one game left.
— We don't look at the table, but the situation itself, when we lose several matches in a row, is annoying," SKA defender Ilya Karpukhin told Izvestia. — But we are professional hockey players, so we can't get distracted by these emotions. It's good that we managed to break the negative streak with a victory over CSKA. Now it is important to show the same impact and quality of the game further. Our goal is to score as many points as possible in the remaining six regular season matches. There is no specific goal in place in the table. Guessing which opponent to get into in the first round is a thankless task. But we want to win all the remaining matches, and we will do our best for that.
SKA's competitors are not stable either. Dynamo Moscow, which is in second place, suffered two painful defeats at home in the second half of February. First, from the outsider of the West, Sochi (3:5), where Southerner Daniil Seroukh scored five goals, becoming only the second in the history of the KHL to show such performance in one match. Previously, only the current president of the league, Alexei Morozov, could do this when he played for Ak Bars Kazan in 2010. And then Dynamo were defeated by their Minsk teammates (0:5).
But then Alexey Kudashov's wards gathered and gave out a victory in the games with the tops. The blue and white team beat Lokomotiv (3:1) and SKA (1:0) on a visit, and then defeated Kunlun (6:3) and Avtomobilist (4:1) at home.
— The failures with Sochi and Minsk were no coincidence, but it's good that we overcame it," Dynamo Moscow defender Artyom Sergeev told Izvestia. — We generally had problems in matches with teams from the lower seeding, as shown by the meeting with Sochi. It's good that we fixed this by defeating Kunlun. Now we are preparing for the playoffs and we will try to do everything to show our best hockey there. We need to play steadily and not lose confidence in ourselves.
CSKA managed to lose to Sochi twice in February, but then defeated the powerful Ufa Salavat Yulaev (3:2) and went on to win several crushing victories, rising to third place. Even the match against SKA that was lost in overtime was not bad in quality.
— We have been playing well in recent matches, even against SKA there were good moments when we could have scored and won," CSKA goalkeeper Pavel Khomchenko said in a conversation with Izvestia. — In principle, we are moving well, but there is still something to work on before the playoffs. We expect to add more in the remaining matches so that we can perform successfully in the relegation series. Does it make a difference where you enter the playoffs? It would be nice to finish the regular season in the top 3 of the West. In any case, I think it's important that we start the playoffs with home games. And against whom to play, there is no difference. Weak teams do not enter the playoffs.
The surprise with the "plus" sign in the West was the success of Dinamo Minsk, which won the last eight matches in regular time and rose to fourth place.
Meanwhile, Salavat Yulaev striker Joshua Livo has already scored 43 goals in the current regular season. He has five goals left before repeating Sergey Mozyakin's record in one regular season. SKA defender Alexander Nikishin scored a goal in overtime of the match against CSKA, and this goal became his 49th for the club. He became the record holder for St. Petersburg defenders' goals in the national championships. And Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg is preparing to host CSKA on March 10 at its new home stadium. The UMMC Arena will accommodate 12.5 thousand spectators and will become one of the largest in the KHL.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
