Starting readiness: in what form are the KHL teams approaching the start of the season

Last week, the last three exhibition hockey competitions of the summer took place — the Moscow Mayor's Cup, the Chelyabinsk Region Governor's Cup and the Romazan Memorial in Magnitogorsk. The readiness of the participating teams for the new KHL season, which starts on September 5, is in the Izvestia article.

Spartak is looking for a replacement for Goldobin

Before the last match of the Mayor's Cup, the top three of Spartak, which eventually took fifth place, looked very unattractive. Together with a bunch of Frost Beads, we tried first Spring, then Todd, but so far there has been no chemistry between them. But in the match against Torpedo, Ruzichka took the lead, and this reshuffle helped. From the first shifts, the troika spent long shifts in attack and became similar to last year's, when Goldobin played in it.

Defender Joseph Keen, who had previously played for the red-whites, looked good. The legionnaire sees the court well, has a good first pass and is not afraid to join the attack. In the 2022/23 season, Keane became the top scorer and defender of the Muscovites. There is a chance that he will be able to repeat this achievement.

As for goalkeepers, unlike Dmitry Nikolaev, Artyom Zagidulin managed to score one cracker and overall looked noticeably more solid and confident than his competitor. It is likely that he will start the season as the first number of the red and white.

Nikitin won his first trophy after returning

With the arrival of Igor Nikitin, CSKA has changed a lot compared to what we saw under Ilya Vorobyov. The hockey players have more consistency in their actions both when playing defensively and offensively. Everyone expected a system hockey game from the army, and that's what happened.

Rookie Spencer Martin showed himself vividly. The legionnaire acted very confidently and really helped his team out several times. He has a great match against Spartak, where he scored a cracker, and won the tournament final.

The bunch of newcomers Buchelnikov – Kovalenko proved themselves great, but Prokhor Poltapov got lost under the new head coach and went into the shadows. Perhaps the absence of his usual partners, with whom he broke up last season, is affecting. Also, Denis Zernov, who was traded from Metallurg this offseason, cannot find his hockey yet — CSKA still has room for growth.

Not all hockey players have fully internalized Nikitin's requirements, but, on first impression, the Army team enters the season in the status of one of the main favorites.

Dynamo is waiting for the goalkeeper again

As you know, Vladislav Podyapolsky will miss the start of the season, so Dynamo may have problems at the start. His replacement Maxim Motorygin left an ambiguous impression — yes, he dried up the Torpedo, which is experiencing great difficulties when playing in attack. But I remember the match against Dinamo Minsk, where, with the score 2-1 in favor of the Muscovites, Maxim missed an ambiguous puck into the near corner, and after that he could not get together and spent the rest of the time very uncertainly — as a result, the Belarusian club won.

It was difficult to expect global changes in Alexey Kudashov's playing system after last year's season, in which the team reached the semi-finals of the Gagarin Cup, so it is logical that if there were any innovations in Dynamo hockey, they were very minor. The game in unequal squads has remained at its usual good level. With the arrival of Devin Brosseau and Maxim Mamin, the variability of the draw has increased even more.

I was pleasantly surprised by Anton Slepyshev, who missed most of the previous season. The forward is in good physical shape and is still useful on the ice as a two-way forward. In the match against Dinamo Minsk, he scored himself and provided an assist.

Razin is looking for Tkachev's partners

As part of Metallurg, at Romazan's home Memorial, all attention was focused on the star recruits — Vladimir Tkachev and Sergey Tolchinsky. The former was initially used in a threesome with Roman Kanzerov and Dmitry Silantyev. However, in the final match of the tournament, Barys was combined with Tolchinsky, leaving Kanzerov in the center. The chemistry of the three was traced, but the implementation failed. However, the entire Metallurg team faced this disease, scoring only six goals in three games. Razin blames the problems with the sale on "summer" ice, which is not of the best quality in August. It's strange that the other coaches didn't notice this.

Derek Barak got lost in the Metallurg team. The rookie legionnaire even dropped out of the squad in the final game against Barys, and had previously been announced for an experimental match with Magnitogorsk. So far, the central axis remains the obvious problem of the steelworkers. Razin is trying Kanzerov in this position, but Roman will still need time to get used to it. To connect such masters as Tkachev and Tolchinsky, a strong center is needed that knows how to work in two directions. It is not for nothing that, with the appearance of unemployed Evgeny Kuznetsov in the box of the Metallurg arena, rumors about the striker's negotiations with the Ural club appeared. Sports director Evgeny Biryukov denied them at a press conference: it turned out that the visit of Evgeny and the agent to Magnitogorsk was exclusively a tourist one.

Traktor against the curse of the home tournament

Traktor ignored all superstitions and won the Governor's Cup at home convincingly, adding with each match. The team still has a decent attacking potential, considering that Grigorenko, Livo, Dube and Korshkov have not yet reached the best conditions. According to my first impressions, I liked goalkeeper Driger more than not. The need to improve defense, at least quantitatively, was clear back in July. Now it has become even more obvious. Management has time.

Immediately after the end of the tournament, one could see an unexpected picture in one of the bars in Chelyabinsk, where the Traktor coaching staff looked in to have a beer right next to the fans. They were not shy and calmly approached to take a picture with Benoit Groux. I can hardly imagine something like this in any other club. The simple and friendly atmosphere, the proximity to the people, is captivating.