Zinetula Bilyaletdinov leaves the post of head coach of the Ak Bars hockey club

Kazan “Ak Bars” for the third time part with the most prominent figure in the history of the KHL grandee. This time, veteran coach Zinetula Bilyaletdinov, under whose leadership the brilliantly and expensively staffed team failed the season, having been eliminated in the opening round of the Gagarin Cup after a collision with Avtomobilist, seems likely to end his coaching career altogether. In any case, Bilyaletdinov himself admitted that he now plans to work in a “different format.”

About the fact that he is leaving the post of head coach of Ak Bars, Zinetula Bilyaletdinov announced at a press conference following the results of the season, which hardly had a chance to become the subject of any heated discussion. It is impossible to interpret them otherwise than as failures. Last year, Ak Bars reached the final of the Gagarin Cup, losing to CSKA. It seemed that I was no worse prepared for this season than for the previous one, at least from a personnel point of view. Despite the loss of the famous forward Dmitry Voronkov, who is now playing well in the NHL club Columbus Blue Jackets, the application of the Kazan club still looked almost the most expensive and sonorous in the NHL. About a third of it consisted of hockey players with an excellent background and extensive experience of performing at the top level – such as Alexander Radulov, Vadim Shipachev, Vyacheslav Voinov, Dmitry Yashkin, Dmitry Kagarlitsky, Evgeny Svechnikov, Stanislav Galiev, Kirill Semenov.

However, the hockey played by this squad did not at all match the quality of the brightness of the names in the club lineup. The point is not so much in its blandness and some archaism – Bilyaletdinov’s favorite style precisely rejects daring – but in the fact that this season they did not coexist, as often happened before, with efficiency.

In the regular season, Ak Bars took fourth place in the Eastern Conference, and in the opening round of the playoffs they were able to win only one match against Avtomobilist, which was still ranked lower than the Kazan team.

In fact, from time to time putting Bilyaletdinov on Zinetula and then saying goodbye to him is already something of a tradition of the Kazan team, for which he has long become, perhaps, the most important figure in its entire history. Bilyaletdinov is a very titled coach whose track record includes, for example, winning gold at the 2012 World Championship at the helm of the Russian national team. But still, first of all, he is associated with Ak Bars.

In total, Zinetula Bilyaletdinov worked there for almost a decade and a half. And Ak Bars won all three of their Gagarin Cups under Bilyaletdinov. He first mined it in 2009, and repeated his success in 2010 and 2018.

At the same time, the previous two Kazan segments of Zinetula Bilyaletdinov turned out to be extremely long by the standards of those who are not particularly patient with KHL coaches. First, he worked at Ak Bars from 2004 to 2011, then from 2014 to 2019. The third segment was much shorter.

Bilyaletdinov again found himself as head of the club’s coaching staff in December 2022 thanks to circumstances. “Ak Bars” found itself in a crisis, teetering on the verge of relegation from the “play-off zone,” and its management, having fired another famous coach who led the national team to titles, Oleg Znarka, entrusted the one who was, one might say, at hand to correct the situation – as an advisor to the executive director – a veteran. The move worked. “Ak Bars” added and could well take the fourth Gagarin Cup: its final series against the then powerful CSKA stretched to a maximum distance of seven meetings. But the effect of the move, which was contrary to the established fashion in the KHL for young mentors, turned out to be short-lived.

Moreover, this time Zinetula Bilyaletdinov, who turned 69 in mid-March, apparently is not taking a break from coaching, but is leaving it for good.

In any case, having said that the status of head coach “requires great strength and emotions” and is associated with “heavy loads,” Bilyaletdinov said that, in his opinion, it would be better for him to work in hockey in a “different format.”

Zinetula Bilyaletdinov did not specify what format we are talking about. However, he honestly admitted that he was “satisfied” with the post he had at the beginning of last season. He described the work as an advisor to the executive director with a wide range of functions as “interesting”: “You work with both the coach and the players. And she’s freer.”

Alexey Dospehov