American Round

The starting round of the current Gagarin Cup, not yet completed, managed to turn into an extremely extraordinary event by the standards of the KHL. For the first time in the early stages of the playoffs, it appeared as a highly competitive league, on par with the NHL’s. And among the victims of his unexpected growth may be the current owner of the main prize of the KHL CSKA, who needs to break into the next round through the seventh match with Severstal.

This round, which has already been overcome by six clubs – Ak Bars, Admiral, Avangard, SKA, Lokomotiv and Torpedo – really looks like something like an anomaly. Well, or you can say that he looks like an absolute reason for pride for those who are responsible for the development of the KHL.

Throughout almost the entire history of the existence of the hockey project, which has already been a decade and a half, the list of its minuses may have been headed by a minus that hurts the eyes of everyone who closely follows the NHL, which served as something like a standard for the domestic league. It’s about a low level of competition. The fact is that every season in the KHL there was too clear a division into niches. Every season, next to a small group of giants aiming for the Gagarin Cup – eternal or temporarily overgrown with muscles, flying up for a year or two – there was a huge detachment of middle peasants and outsiders, butting with giants and not dreaming. And the 1/8 finals perfectly emphasized this feature.

In the playoffs, both in the NHL and in the KHL, there are 16 clubs. But if in the North American league, in fact, any of them is ready to go to the end, and the victory of a team that barely broke through the regular season over its winner is sometimes not considered a serious sensation, then in the league, located in Eurasia, everything has always been much simpler and fresher . The format with a full, up to four wins in a series, starting round in the KHL appeared in 2011, in its fourth season. Since then, there have been a dozen play-off opening rounds (including a three-year-old round in the coronavirus-suspended season after it), and none of them looked like the classic NHL play-off opening round – with a fierce fight in most doubles, with surprises set in motion.

Among these 12 rounds, there were no such at all that would have done without “dry”, in four matches, defeats. Moreover, in nine of them such series, without a hint of intrigue, there were as many as three out of eight. Among these 12 rounds, in four there were no pairs that made it to the seventh match, and in three more seventh matches there was only one.

It is most logical to measure the degree of intrigue by the total number of meetings in the round. So, in the previous 12 years, for the modest mark of 40 games (it’s as if all the series ended with a score of 4: 1), it did not exceed five times. In the last draw, however, the Jokerita series with Spartak fell through due to the withdrawal from the KHL against the backdrop of a special military operation in Ukraine by the Finnish club, but even if it had been carried out, the chances of crossing the line would not have been so great, given that in the remaining seven played 35 matches. And the record for this indicator was kept for a long, long time – from 2011, that is, from the moment the seven-match format was implemented, to 2014, the starting rounds of the Gagarin Cup consisted of 44 meetings.

In this sense, the 1/8 finals of the current draw really unceremoniously threw the KHL trends into the trash. Everything in her was contrary to the usual indicators. The total number of meetings is 48, there are no “dry” series at all, and only in two cases it was limited to five matches – with a score of 4: 1, Avangard dealt with Sibir, and Lokomotiv – with Vityaz. At six, the fire of intrigue was blazing – and, as a rule, with a bright flame. This also applies to series in which there was a 100% “paper” favorite. The mighty SKA and Ak Bars, who won the regular season in the Western and Eastern conferences, before defeating Dynamo Minsk and Neftekhimik in six meetings, suffered terribly, finding themselves in the role of lagging behind in the course of the series, although earlier they had faced opponents so low formally status would hardly have been noticed by driving over them with an asphalt roller. And it came to the seventh match in two series.

And with the sensations now, finally, everything is more or less in order. In 2020, due to the coronavirus pandemic, Admiral suffered a financial collapse and was forced to miss an entire season, returning to the KHL as an even more ordinary weakling than before. In March 2023, the Vladivostok team, having squeezed into the playoffs, threw out of it a strong and certainly not doubting that it would at least fight in the conference finals, Salavat Yulaev. Last season, Torpedo did not make it to the playoffs, and before that, in five draws, they went to the 1/8 finals. This season, the Torpedo team, with a new mentor, hockey legend Igor Larionov, transformed from an unremarkable team into a team with a cool game and great results, in the style of giants who value the puck, and on Sunday they finished off the strong Dynamo Moscow in the sixth match of the series.

Finally, another, quite thunderous, sensation looms on the horizon. Avtomobilist’s series with Metallurg and, most importantly, CSKA with Severstal stretched to the maximum distance. Moreover, the confidence and calmness with which the Cherepovites smashed the army team yesterday, having thrown them three unanswered goals, make us think that in the seventh match, the current holders of the Gagarin Cup simply will not be.

Alexey Dospekhov