2021-2022 review. Admiral: first season after return
KHL.ru starts reviewing the 2021-2022 season for each of the 24 league’s teams. Today it’s Admiral’s turn.
Before the season, it was assumed that it would be difficult for Admiral to cling to the playoffs zone, and taking ninth or tenth place would already be a good result. During the season, the Sailors were able to surpass only one team in the standings. Given the transfers and reshuffles in the coaching staff, eleventh place is more of an interim, transitional place in the first year after their return to the league.
The team started the season with six straight losses, including a 2-9 rout of SKA St. Petersburg, where Matvei Michkov scored his first goals in the KHL. Things got better before the second break for the EHT, and the team finished the season with an encouraging streak of four straight home wins.
Best players
49 games, 26 (8+18) points, −10
By far the best player of the team last season was the Czech defenseman Libor Sulak, who two seasons ago tried to establish himself in the KHL with Severstal. Despite his negative plus-and-minus rating, Sulak was a key player on the team, leading the Sailors in scoring, goals, and assists, other than in average time on ice (22:27).
41 games, 9 W, GAA 2.62, 91.7% saves percentage, 2 SO
In fact, goalie Nikita Serebryakov started his career at the KHL level with Admiral back in the 2016-2017 season. He spent last year at Torpedo and then returned to Vladivostok in the summer, where he was the team’s number one goalie. Only with him and Alexander Lazushin (3 games, 2 wins) the team achieved victories last term. Serebryakov ended the latest campaign with a career high in goals-against average and shutouts.
38 games, 12 (6+6) points, even
If the team’s top scorer was a defenseman, it’s hard to single out any of the forwards. In the top three, defenseman Dinar Khamidullin, who made his debut at the KHL level, deserved a mention. He played his first games in the League back in the 2015-2016 season, but only now he has shown that he can perform at this level. He has the second-highest differential on the team, if you count players who have played at least 50% of their games, led by Andrei Obidin (plus-6).
Head coach
The team started the preseason training camp under the guidance of Russian specialist Sergei Vostrikov, but in August, before the start of the season, he was replaced by Belarusian Alexander Andriyevsky. The Sailors started the season under his guidance, but it was unsuccessful, with just six wins in 27 games. By the second half of November, Oleg Gorbenko took the helm of the team — one win in 7 games, and then the team was headed by Latvian Leonids Tambijevs, and the situation was much better, with 8 wins in 15 games.
Best game
It was under Tambijievs’ leadership that Admiral played quite a few bright games — like the sensational victory in Moscow over Dynamo (2-1 SO), but the most striking was the victory over Ak Bars Kazan in early January. The Sailors were trailing after the first period, but goals by Pavel Shen and Alexander Shevchenko in the middle frame helped the Admiral turn the tide in the game and then win (4-2).
Young guns
Among the young players of the team, defender Danila Palivko played the most matches, 19 games, but he didn’t score any points. Forward Daniil Gutik was the brightest with two goals in six games. He scored those two goals, which were his first in the KHL, in a game against Spartak (4-3) and became the best rookie of the week thanks to his double.
Offseason moves
It’s always better to keep playing than to keep coming back. This allows the team to conduct a transfer campaign from the first days of May. Admiral has already extended its agreements with goalkeeper Alexander Lazushin, defenseman Leonid Metalnikov, as well as signed new contracts with forwards Artyom Gareyev and Evgeny Grachyov. In addition, VHL champions Vadim Khlopotov and Semyon Ivanov signed try-out contracts with the club, while among the newcomers we should mention forwards Mikhail Belyayev (on loan from Lokomotiv) and Anton Berlyov, who also became VHL champion and spent last season in Germany.
