12 from 12. Best forwards: Popov and Varnakov
Continuing our rundown of the KHL’s top players in each position. 12 seasons, 12 players. Today we’re starting on the forwards with Alexander Popov and Mikhail Varnakov.
12. Alexander Popov
GP: 673, G: 121, A: 266, Pts: 387, +/-: +167, PIM: 150
Clubs: Avangard, CSKA
Country: Russia
One of the forwards with the best plus/minus ratings in the League’s history, Alexander Popov, was an established player well before the KHL started in 2008. The veteran forward started playing in his native Omsk, where he played his first pro season in the far 1998-99 campaign. He was also part of the Avangard lineup that won the Russian Superleague title back in 2003-04 when the leaders of the team were Maxim Sushinsky, Alexander Prokopyev, and Oleg Tverdovsky.
At the dawn of the new League, Popov was one of the top scorers, amassing 40 points in the very first year. After helping Russia winning the 2012 IIHF WC gold medal playing in the first line with Evgeny Malkin and Alexander Perezhogin, he also lined up at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi before playing his last season with Avangard in 2015-16. In the 2016 offseason, Popov moved to CSKA, where he finally won his first Gagarin Cup in 2019. The veteran forward, who will be 40 in August, will see his contract run out at the end of the month. It will be sad if he will have to retire without having a chance to have a final run at his second Cup.
11. Mikhail Varnakov
GP: 685, G: 207, A: 180, Pts: 387, +/-: +53, PIM: 422
Clubs: Torpedo, SKA, Ak Bars, Dynamo Moscow
Country: Russia
Mikhail Varnakov was a young player on the rise when the KHL started in the 2008-09 season. The native of Nizhny Novgorod started his pro career with the local Torpedo, where he had his first steps in senior hockey in the Russian Superleague. In the inaugural KHL season, Varnakov finished at the twelfth position in the goal-scoring rankings, netting 33 goals for Torpedo. His fantastic goal-scoring ability is what kept him a hot commodity in the League, even well past 30. He also skated in two KHL All-Star Games, in 2013 in Chelyabinsk, and 2016 in Moscow. He is currently the fifth goal-scorer in the League’s history, being among the only players to score 200 goals in the KHL with Sergei Mozyakin, Danis Zaripov, Nigel Dawes, and Vadim Shipachyov.
But Varnakov didn’t play his whole season at home. He also lined up for SKA, Ak Bars, and Dynamo Moscow. He only played less than half a season in St. Petersburg, but his tenures in Kazan and Moscow were longer. Varnakov scored 60 goals with the Ak Bars jersey, but his stint there was when the Tatarstan franchise wasn’t at his top and saw limital success in the postseason. After a somewhat disappointing 2017-18 campaign with Dynamo Moscow (where he still scored 23 points), in 2018-19, Varnakov returned home as the new Torpedo’s captain. At 35, he showed little signs of slowing down, improving or tying his production for the fourth straight season. Last January, Varnakov signed a two-year extension with Torpedo that will see him playing on the shores of the Volga river at least until the end of the 2021-22 campaign.
