Amur Arrows: Khabarovsk residents will compete with Siberia for a place in the KHL playoffs

There is just over a week left until the end of the KHL regular season, and almost all the participants in the playoffs have already decided. It remains only to find out who will go to the Gagarin Cup as the eighth from the Eastern Conference — Novosibirsk Siberia or Khabarovsk Amur. But the winner of the regular season is already known — Metallurg Magnitogorsk, the best in the Eastern Conference, became the winner for the first time in its history. Last year's Gagarin Cup winner, Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, became the strongest in the West.

Metallurg

It so happened that the leadership in both conferences was quickly seized by the holders of the last two Gagarin Cups. And they didn't let him go until the very end. In particular, Metallurg Magnitogorsk, which won the KHL's main trophy the year before last, went through almost the entire current regular season without slumps.

In September, at the beginning of the season, Andrei Razin's team lost two matches in a row, both in overtime, scoring one point apiece. The next time a series of two defeats happened was only in mid-February. The rest of the time, both in terms of the game and the result, Magnitogorsk was head and shoulders above most teams both in its Eastern Conference and in the regular season as a whole. The Omsk Avangard, which has gained momentum recently, could compete with it, but previously it was not so stable as to compete in the battle for the first place.

Metallurg's problems began only in February, the last month of the regular season. First, there was an away crushing defeat from the Yekaterinburg Avtomobilist with a score of 1:8. Then, at the junction of February and March, Magnitogorsk lost three times in a row for the first time in the season, but in these matches everything was decided twice in overtime, that is, the team almost could not do without points.

One of the reasons for the problems in late winter and early spring was a serious injury to striker Dmitry Silantyev, who most likely will not have time to recover before the end of the season. The hero of the victorious Gagarin Cup — 2024 this season was the striking first link in the attack with Vladimir Tkachev and Roman Kanzerov. And now Razin has to look for options to replace him before the playoffs.

Nevertheless, on March 11, Magnitogorsk secured victory in the regular season four matches before the finish. For the first time in its history, the club won the Continental Cup, a prize for the winner of the regular season. But the key for her will be the playoffs. Razin also stated this, noting that no one will remember this victory in the regular season.

—Magnitogorsk had a very good regular season and deservedly won it by a solid margin," Vladimir Krikunov, the former head coach of the Russian national team, shared his opinion with Izvestia. — The team holds the puck well, plays at high speeds and pleases the audience with both the results and the quality of hockey. But this is still not a guarantee of success in the playoffs. We see the gaming problems that Metallurg has been having lately. And the main task for Razin is to find an adequate replacement for Silantyev in the first flight in a short time.

"A strong squad should not notice the loss of a fighter"

Metallurg hockey player Roman Kanzerov — about the injury of his teammate, a series of defeats in the KHL and preparations for the playoffs

"Locomotive"

A year ago, the Yaroslavl club won the regular season by a solid margin, and in the playoffs won the long-awaited Gagarin Cup, the first in its history. After that, the head coach of the team, Igor Nikitin, and almost all of his staff left for CSKA Moscow. But the club's management managed to keep most of the championship squad.

When Bob Hartley replaced Nikitin in the first half of the season, the results and the game were not very stable. But the experienced Canadian, who has not worked for four years since leaving the Omsk Avangard, with whom he won the Gagarin Cup in 2021, managed to bring the railwaymen in good shape by spring. As a result, they confidently took the first place in the West and seem to be one of the playoff favorites.

"Siberia" and "Amur"

This season, 15 of the 16 playoff participants became known unusually quickly. Only in the East remains the intrigue in the fight for the eighth place — the last of those who qualify to participate in the Gagarin Cup.

Sibir and Amur, which are fighting for it, have gone through a lot of changes during the season in the squad and coaching staff. Khabarovsk residents appointed Alexander Galchenyuk, the father of one of the team's leaders, Alexander Galchenyuk Jr., who had never worked in this position, as the head coach in the offseason.

In the first two months, the results were not good. At that time, Alexander Andrievsky, an experienced Belarusian, was appointed assistant coach. Soon Galchenyuk Sr. stopped appearing in the team. The club explained this by the state of his health. Andrievsky, who replaced him, managed to improve his results and, closer to winter, fully replaced Galchenyuk.

After that, there was a decline in results, but since February, Amur has regained momentum and moved closer to Siberia. However, on March 10, he made an offensive misfire in a home game with Astana's Barys, who lost their playoff chances (0:3).

Now he is five points behind Sibir with four matches to go. To get into the playoffs, the Far Eastern club needs to win all these games and hope that Novosibirsk will lose three times.

Sibir has changed its head coach twice this season. And in the middle of the regular season, she was in last place, lagging far behind the competitors. But Yaroslav Luzenkov, who led the team, previously worked in charge only in youth hockey and the VHL, managed to rally the players and make a breakthrough with them, which now allows them to have one foot in the playoffs.

"We still have a lot of mistakes, every game brings something new"

CSKA hockey player Vitaly Abramov — about the postponement of the match in Sochi, the team's results in the KHL and preparations for the playoffs

Sochi transfers

On February 23, Sochi, the last team in the West, played CSKA at home. After the first period, with the score 0-0, the match had to be stopped due to the threat of UAVs. As a result, the meeting was postponed to March 11 in Moscow, where it was necessary to play two periods. Interestingly, according to the calendar, the same teams played a scheduled match in the capital the day before. As a result, the Army team won both meetings with a score of 2:1.

The KHL also had to postpone Sochi's game against Ak Bars Kazan by one day (from March 12 to March 13). At the same time, on March 1, the southern club's home match against Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod was also interrupted for a similar reason. He was eventually beaten on the same day, Sochi won 3-1. Three days later he was supposed to host Lokomotiv, but in the end the meeting was postponed to Yaroslavl. According to rumors, this was due to an agreement between the clubs. Sochi has already played its next home match on March 6 against Avangard and won 3-1.

"We tried to take this situation calmly and play the best we can,— Sochi forward Timur Hafizov told Izvestia. — It is clear that the main thing here is safety. Therefore, we simply obey the decisions of the KHL that exist. After all, we are all on equal terms with our rivals. So no one is complaining about the situation. We just tried to play well. Somewhere it worked out — both matches were played on equal terms with the army, they won against Avangard and Torpedo. We will try to win the remaining matches as well.

Sochi has four matches left until the end of the regular season. Of these, two are at home — on March 15 with Amur and on March 18 with Ak Bars. It is also worth noting that the captain of Avangard, Damir Sharipzyanov, is close to the record for points among defenders for one regular champion. He has two points left in the goal+pass system to break the record of Kevin Dallman, a former Barys player. He has four matches to do this. The regular season will end on March 20. The playoffs start three days later.