"I couldn't believe that Vityaz was gone."

The new KHL season started on Friday. One of the main intrigues is the appearance of a second team in St. Petersburg, the Chinese Shanghai Dragons, renamed from Kunlun Red Star. Previously, it was a Beijing club that joined the KHL in 2016, and since 2020 it has played home matches in Mytishchi due to covid. Now there has been a change of management, a rebranding and a move to St. Petersburg to the world's largest ice stadium, SKA Arena. And there are plans to move to Shanghai in the coming years.

The head coach of the team was the famous Canadian Gerard Galland, who has experience in the NHL, where in 2018 he reached the Stanley Cup finals with the Vegas Golden Knights, and in 2021 he led the Canadian national team to victory in the World Cup. On Saturday, the Shanghai Dragons will play their first KHL match in its current form, the St. Petersburg derby with SKA. In an interview with Izvestia, Dragons striker Ivan Chekhovich shared his impressions of working with Gallan, talked about the tasks for the season, and also commented on the collapse of his previous club Vityaz from Balashikha and explained how Lokomotiv Yaroslavl won the Gagarin Cup in the spring, for which Chekhov played in 2022-2024.

— What are the objectives of the Shanghai Dragons for the season?

— The minimum goal is to reach the playoffs.

— How are you going to achieve this, given which Avral the team gathered in?

— I think it's not so important when the team is assembled. The main thing is that we have a good team. There are many leaders and players with very high skills.

— Is it possible to enter the playoffs with the current squad?

— For most of the games we had in the preseason, it seems to me that in our team all the lines, all the links are the same in level. So there are enough forces to solve such a task.

— In the four years since you played in North America for San Jose, have you forgotten English? Do you speak it well enough to communicate with the coaching staff and foreign hockey players?

— My English is fine — I speak it fluently. And I've crossed paths with many guys from our team before — the hockey world is tight. So I calmly communicate with everyone.

— Have you ever crossed paths with Gerard Galland in North America?

— In 2021, I played one of the matches for San Jose in the NHL against Vegas, which was previously coached by Gallan. At that moment, he was no longer working at the club, but there was still a line-up assembled under him. And now, in this preseason, Gerard and his staff have been making cuts of the Vegas he led, using his example to show what kind of game they want us to play.

— Gallan led Vegas in the first three years of the club's existence and in his NHL debut season immediately led them to the Stanley Cup finals, where they lost to Alexander Ovechkin's Washington. Should the experience of creating teams from scratch help Gerard with Shanghai?

— I think that's why he was appointed to our team, because they took that experience into account. Anyway, this is one of the reasons for signing Gallan. Indeed, bringing a brand new club to the NHL playoff finals is a unique achievement. Perhaps he can do something similar with us.

"We have one task — to try to win the Gagarin Cup"

SKA hockey player Mikhail Vorobyov — about the goals for the season, the new head coach, the problems of Salavat Yulaev and Kaprizov's game in the NHL

— What were your emotions when it was announced in June that Vityaz would not participate in the new KHL season and was disbanding the team?

— I'm fucked up. I couldn't believe it.

— Did the previous rumors about the imminent collapse of Vityaz cause any alarm? Was it a shock at the moment when the club officially announced its dissolution?

— I signed a new two-year contract with the club in April. And just a week later, the first rumors started. The guys and I discussed it and didn't worry at all. Lech Makeev said that, in principle, there were always similar rumors every season. But they came and went. Therefore, I couldn't believe at all that everything would turn out this way.

— Is there any understanding when the money will be given?

— There are certain agreements that the money needs to be returned. Plus, I read an interview with Alexei Morozov (president of the KHL — Izvestia), who said that the distribution of the money earned by the league last season would be coming soon. And something has to go to Vityaz.

— How much do you owe?

— Not enough. A quarter of one salary and part of personal bonuses (the interview took place on August 30, on September 5, Sport-Express reported that Vityaz had closed all debts to hockey players — Izvestia).

— You joined Shanghai together with Igor Varitsky, the long-term general manager of Vityaz, who has a reputation for finding low-cost foreign players who were discovered in a low-budget club near Moscow. Should this experience help now?

— I think so. It should work. It's no secret that Igor Konstantinovich has long been one of the best general managers in this regard. Every season, he hit the nail on the head about foreigners. And now he is realizing his potential in this direction.

— You joined Vityaz last year, and before that you played two seasons at Lokomotiv. Were you surprised by his triumph in the last playoffs?

—Not at all. I knew right away that they would most likely take the Cup. They deserved it.

— Did you have any hope of staying for the championship season, or did you want more game practice from the very beginning?

— There was hope. But I realized that it probably didn't depend on me. I had another year of my contract, but the management confronted me with the fact. And I joined Vityaz.

— How did they win the Gagarin Cup?

— Consistency and mentality of the coaching staff. Well, the hockey players gathered there are skilled. A very decent level. From the inside, everything from the very beginning looked like everything was going according to the plan of Igor Valeryevich Nikitin, the head coach of the team. It's like every detail is his plan. Even if they lost, he explained what was happening and why. Such a strong analysis of every nuance was cool.