Ilya Vorobyov became the new coach of hockey CSKA instead of Sergei Fedorov

The failure that the winner of the two previous editions of the Gagarin Cup CSKA experienced this season led to a change in the coach of the Moscow KHL giant. Instead of Sergei Fedorov, it was headed by Ilya Vorobiev. This coach has a rather controversial career, in which the Gagarin Cups won with Metallurg are adjacent to a series of failures when working with different teams.

On Wednesday, after a meeting of the club’s supervisory board, CSKA announced its decision not to renew the contract with head coach Sergei Fedorov, which expires on April 30. Instead of him, Ilya Vorobiev will lead the team. In the statement CSKA says that he “has extensive coaching experience, as evidenced by his successful work in the Russian national and Olympic teams, as well as at the club level in the Kontinental Hockey League championship.” In addition, it notes that Ilya Vorobyov “is well acquainted with the CSKA team, having played twice in the final series of the Gagarin Cup against the army club,” and expresses the hope that Vorobyov’s “invaluable experience” will help his new team “continue its glorious winning streak.” traditions”.

Information about CSKA’s separation from Sergei Fedorov looks quite expected, given what happened to him this season. Fedorov, a legendary forward with quite a lot of managerial experience at the Moscow club, took over the post of its head coach, essentially trying himself in this role for the first time, in 2021. The experiment turned out to be surprisingly successful: CSKA won the Gagarin Cup twice in a row. However, in the third championship with Sergei Fedorov, he experienced a strange failure. Having retained almost the entire “golden” roster, the army team had an inexpressive regular season, taking only sixth place in the Western Conference, and were eliminated in the playoffs in the opening round. In the series against Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, the army team won only one match.

In fact, CSKA’s chosen successor to Sergei Fedorov is much more intriguing. The fact is that Ilya Vorobyov has a career rich in various bright events, but still too controversial.

In the first half of the last decade, he was an assistant to the famous Canadian coach Mike Keenan at Metallurg Magnitogorsk and in this capacity won the Gagarin Cup. In 2015, Kinen left the Magnitogorsk club, and Vorobiev, who had earned a promotion to the rank, immediately again reached the most valuable KHL trophy, defeating CSKA in the decisive series in a bitter struggle. The following season, Metallurg played in the play-off finals, in which they lost to SKA, and a few months after that, amid a series of unimpressive results, Ilya Vorobyov was fired.

However, his reputation was already so solid that Vorobyov soon received an even more prestigious appointment. Or rather, even two at the same time. In the spring of 2018, immediately before the World Cup, Oleg Znarok, who had just won Olympic gold in Pyeongchang with the national team, suddenly left the position of head coach of SKA and the Russian national team, and both vacant positions went to Ilya Vorobyov. However, it was not possible to stay with them for long. Vorobiev led the Russian national team at two world championships. At the first, she retired in the quarterfinals after losing to the Canadians in overtime. On the second, after waiting for a great reinforcement from the NHL, she took third place, losing out to the Finns in the semi-finals. Ilya Vorobiev worked for SKA for one full season. With him, the St. Petersburg giant suffered a defeat that had not yet become a tradition in the play-off semifinals from CSKA.

After this, Vorobiev returned to Metallurg. However, these four years of working with him did not add to his fame. I remember the segment more for Vorobyov’s constant shuffling of his headquarters, but not for the results. The Magnitogorsk club, still possessing serious resources by KHL standards, twice made it to the quarterfinal stage of the play-offs, and in 2020 managed to fail in the first round against the modest Barys (then, however, the Gagarin Cup was interrupted due to the coronavirus pandemic ), and made its only takeoff in 2022. He again made it to the final series of the Gagarin Cup, but lost in seven matches, leading CSKA 3:1 during the confrontation. Sent into retirement in 2023, 49-year-old Vorobiev missed the previous season.

Alexey Dospehov