SKA: all or nothing – MK Saint Petersburg

Tectonic shifts in the composition

In recent years, the army team has been automatically listed among the favorites in the fight for the Gagarin Cup. Over the 14 seasons spent in the KHL, the “red-blue” army team did not reach the conference final only five times. The last time Petersburgers remained outside the top four was eight years ago! Amazing stability.

However, in the Northern capital, ambitions are always the most serious – victory and only victory! The Cup has not been around for five years, and every time the team stumbled on teammates from CSKA on the verge of a trophy.

Apparently, therefore, for the upcoming season, the army team from the banks of the Neva chose the slogan: “All or nothing”, emphasizing that a new misfire will be perceived painfully.

But winning the Cup will be much more difficult than in previous years. The stability of the composition is no longer a strong point of the army team. Last spring and summer, the team was shaken by truly tectonic shifts. 17 people left the team, 11 came to replace them. And it’s not just about quantity, it’s about quality. Anton Burdasov, Andrey Kuzmenko, Nikita Gusev were KHL superstars. Plus, I had to get rid of the entire foreign legion, where there were leading players from the national teams of Finland and Sweden – the leaders of world hockey.

It is simply impossible to make up for such losses in the current realities. Previously, the club had the money and resources to recruit the best possible squad, and with such hockey players you could play as beautifully as you like. Five years ago, Peter gathered all the techies of the country and worked magic on the ice, but now this era is over.

Even the unlimited possibilities of the general sponsor – Gazprom – do not help. On the one hand, there is a salary ceiling that does not allow you to intercept stars from competitors. On the other hand, the foreign market is now limited: Europeans are forbidden to go to the KHL by their federation, only North Americans remain, who were not useful in the NHL.

However, after all, SKA managed to catch several strong players on the transfer market during the offseason. Former Torpedo player Zhafyarov, together with the leader of Neftekhimik Khairullin, formed a trio with Khusnutdinov, which was called Chak-chak-line (for the Tatar roots of these forwards, chak-chak is a sweet dish from Tatarstan) and shocked control summer matches.

There is also Ovechkin’s former partner in Washington, Dmitry Yashkin, 2018 Olympic champion Nikolai Prokhorkin, defender Alexander Nikishin, vice-champion of the Beijing Games.

Plus, promising young people who have long been gathering bit by bit from all over Russia: Michkov, Bardakov, Buchelnikov, Groshev are predicting a great future.

Instead of a fun team – a worker-peasant team?

“There are experienced guys in the team, but I would note the signing of a contract with Yashkin, who was appointed captain. Dmitry is an experienced hockey player: he played in the NHL, he looked great in Dynamo at one time, ”says Kirill Safronov, a former player of SKA and a number of NHL clubs. – Here the most important question is how much he will be able to play with partners, who will become “central” for him, who will bring shells. In general, it is noticeable that in SKA now more emphasis is placed on the team, on team interactions. Never talk about someone personally. All together, one goal! The coaching staff wants to have four equal links capable of producing results. Hockey played by SKA will not be as combinational, but it will be active and fast. It is difficult to call someone a clear favorite before the start of the championship. Including SKA. Anything can happen. The season promises to be quite interesting. The number of matches will increase, there will be fewer foreign players, more youth. Of course, in recent years, the army team from the banks of the Neva among the contenders for the cup. And now is no exception.”

However, if earlier the army team were first in line for the main KHL trophy, now they are one of many in a long line.

The former dominance over rivals is a thing of the past. The current SKA is unlikely to be fun. After all, you can remember the last playoffs, where after an amazing 1:6 in the first match, the team began to act even against Spartak, the seventh seed, as the second number. In all other matches, I had to pull out a victory with a difference of one puck.

This is not the first bell that SKA is turning from a “team-smile”, “team-fun” into a worker-peasant team, where the result is much more important than the content. And the desire to return the Gagarin Cup at any cost exceeds image costs. Will only fans who have been spoiled by the refined style of previous years agree with this? Moreover, already this winter, the army team will have to think about how to fill the new, 20,000-seat arena – the largest in the world – which is being built on the site of the SCC.

“All or nothing” is also a personal challenge for Roman Rotenberg, in whose hands all power in the club is now concentrated. He also needs to keep an eye on the players, not having serious experience in independent coaching yet, and steer the general economy. Sitting on several chairs is not easy.

And if we imagine that “everything” in the form of the Gagarin Cup is not achieved, then with a high degree of probability next season the general sponsor may want to throw other coaches and top managers into battle.