Magnitogorsk is pulling: will Metallurg be able to pass the KHL season without slumps

The regular season of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) resumes on February 10 after a six-day pause for the All-Star Game and will actually reach the finish line. There are just over a month and a half left before the start of the playoffs. All the teams have already played more than 50 matches each, while a total of 68 meetings need to be held. Metallurg Magnitogorsk is almost certain to win the regular season. There is also little intrigue left with the fight for a playoff spot, but there are a lot of unresolved issues inside the top eight of the Western and Eastern Conferences.

Leader

The Continental Cup, the prize for the winner of the regular season, is highly likely to be awarded to Metallurg. Andrey Razin's team leads by eight points from the second-placed Omsk Avangard, having played one match less than him. Magnitogorsk currently has the fewest games along with Sochi, with 51. Most of the other participants have already played 52-54 matches, while Siberia has 55.

At the same time, Metallurg is considered the favorite for the upcoming playoffs. In terms of game quality, the team surpasses everyone so far. Even an unsuccessful attempt to integrate superstar striker Evgeny Kuznetsov into the squad does not prevent Razin from achieving success. The two–time world champion and 2018 Stanley Cup winner joined the team in the fall, already during the season, having been out of work for almost six months after parting with SKA St. Petersburg.

But in January, Kuznetsov left the club and joined Ufa's Salavat Yulaev. Nevertheless, two other star newcomers of the Ural club successfully entered the game: strikers Vladimir Tkachev and Sergey Tolchinsky, who came in the summer offseason. Tolchinsky was also not included in the regular season, but in the end he was able to play. The same applies to the main old—timer of Magnitogorsk, defender Egor Yakovlev – for more than a year there have been rumors about the conflict between the 2018 Olympic champion and the 2014 world champion with Razin. Before the start of the season, the 34-year-old hockey player even lost his captain's armband and dropped out of the squad several times, but now he continues to be one of the leaders, despite a curious own goal in a recent match with Tolyatti Lada (3:2).

Strikers Dmitry Silantyev and Roman Kanzerov, who made their KHL debuts the season before last, the first in Magnitogorsk for its current head coach, continue to progress. Then, thanks in large part to them, the young, without obvious stars team won the Gagarin Cup. Now both of the then newcomers have become leaders, even with Tkachev and Tolchinsky nearby.

Interestingly, the current Metallurg season has been going on without any downturns so far. Only one series of defeats — in two consecutive matches at the beginning of the season. And in those games, the club scored two points, as it lost not in regular time, but in overtime or shootouts.

— As of today, it is difficult to imagine who can prevent Metallurg from winning the title, — two-time Olympic champion Alexander Kozhevnikov shared his opinion with Izvestia. — The team plays at very high speeds, holds the puck perfectly and forces the opponent to act at the limit of his abilities all the time, while he can afford to take a break for certain periods. But it's not a fact that she will definitely win the playoffs. It may just affect the fact that everything is going very well. Players may feel complacent somewhere, which is fraught in the playoffs. It is no coincidence that Razin often says after defeats that these losses are beneficial, they shake up the team. It will not be easy for him to keep his players focused until the end of the season, but Andrey is able to do it — he has already proven his ability to motivate his players more than once.

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The fight for the playoffs

16 teams, eight each in the Western and Eastern Conferences, which will continue to compete in the Gagarin Cup in the spring as part of the playoffs, have almost decided. Formally, only Metallurg and Avangard have already passed through there. But in the coming days, they will apparently be joined by the leader of the West, the current Gagarin Cup winner Yaroslavl Lokomotiv and Ak Bars Kazan, which is third in the East.

However, by the end of February, most of the other participants must decide. Completing the top eight of the West, St. Petersburg SKA has an 11—point lead over its closest pursuer, the St. Petersburg-based Shanghai Dragons. At the same time, the Chinese club played one more match than the Army team.

In the second half of January, SKA produced a record—breaking series of defeats in the KHL - seven matches in a row. But even this gift was not taken advantage of by the Dragons, who won only two of the last 11 meetings. So far, even the change of head coach and the appointment of Canadian Mitch Love, who worked in the NHL at the Washington Capitals headquarters, has not helped.

Meanwhile, Alexei Kovalev, who was responsible for the majority, was fired from the Shanghai Dragons headquarters earlier this week. The legendary striker worked in the team for only a month and a half.

In the East, the intrigue in the fight for entry into the playoffs is a little better. Siberia, which is in eighth place, is six points ahead of Amur Khabarovsk, but the Far Eastern team has two meetings in reserve. Nevertheless, Siberians look preferable to the game.

Since mid-November, they have won 16 of 28 matches, scoring several spectacular victories over top clubs. Although they were in last place in the table back in the fall, far behind the playoff zone, they went through two changes of head coaches, a nightmarish streak of 13 defeats in a row, a number of scandals and the change of several key hockey players.

It seemed that the season was dead for Novosibirsk. Yaroslav Luzenkov, a native of the city, was able to raise the team from the bottom, having previously worked as an assistant to previous head coaches Vadim Epanchintsev and Butsaev for a year and a half. Even earlier, the specialist mainly worked in youth hockey. In 2021, he won the Kharlamov Cup (for winning the MHL playoffs) with Dynamo Moscow. At the adult level, as a head coach, he unsuccessfully tried himself in the VHL at the head of Dynamo St. Petersburg, but he was able to cling to his first chance in the KHL. And he raised Sibir so that few people doubt its participation in the playoffs.

— 97% of the intrigue is over, if someone from the ninth place jumps into the playoff zone, it will be out of the ordinary, - said Vladimir Krikunov, former head coach of the Russian national team, in a conversation with Izvestia. — The reasons why everything is already clear are different, but there are several general trends. First of all, these are financial opportunities and lack of stability in the squad, on the coaching bridge and in management. Sochi, Lada and Admiral were burnt out in the second half of the season. Shanghai has a slightly different story: in the first part of the regular season, the team played quite well, but, as in previous years, Kunlun, as soon as the chances of the playoffs began to fade, many players dropped their paddles and began to prepare for vacation.

The specialist particularly highlighted the work in Siberia of Luzenkov, whom he replaced at the head of Dynamo St. Petersburg in the VHL and left on the coaching staff.

— After Yaroslav was appointed acting head of Siberia, we talked with him — I don't remember whether I called him or he called me, — said Krikunov. — Luzenkov asked then: "Vladimir Vasilyevich, what should I do?" I replied: "Yaroslav, do you remember what I did in St. Petersburg when your start didn't go well? I began to improve my physical fitness. You have the same problem in Novosibirsk, and it needs to be solved first." Luzenkov did just that. The guys ran around and immediately after the first victories they believed in themselves, in the ideas of the coach. Plus, there was a good reinforcement of the squad when Andrew Andreoff and Taylor Beck returned to Novosibirsk. The team is on a good run now and may well make some noise in the playoffs. Yaroslav is a very thoughtful guy, knows how to approach the players. So I'm not surprised that he was able to properly understand a difficult situation.

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The regular season will resume after the All-Star Match, which took place over the weekend in Yekaterinburg. Meanwhile, the Shanghai Dragons recently announced that they will play two home matches in China in early spring. In Shanghai, the club will play on March 5 with Sibir and on March 7 with Astana Barys. These will be the first KHL games in China since January 2020, when the pandemic began in the country.