January’s finest: Lazushin, Semenov, Varnakov & Leshchenko
To mark the end of the fifth month’s play of the seventh season of the Championship, the Kontinental Hockey League has named the best players of the month in four categories.
– Best goaltender was Alexander Lazushin (Dynamo Moscow), who in 6 outings recorded four shutouts, a goals against average of 0.4 and a save percentage of 98.61;
– Best defenseman was Alexei Semenov (Vityaz), who made 10 appearances without a single negative "plus/minus", finishing the month with 7 points (1+6) and a +12;
– Best forward was Mikhail Varnakov (Ak Bars), with a haul of 9 points (6+3) from nine games and a +7 for the month;
– Best rookie was 19-year-old Atlant forward Vyacheslav Leshchenko, whose account for January showed 6 games, 4 points (2+2), a +2 and an average ice time of 10 minutes 38 seconds.
