Barys season preview: serious departures and Skabelka’s return

The Kazakh franchise has undergone some big changes: only Nikita Mikhailis remains from last year’s top unit, and the defense is much different. But the head coach, who had already built a very strong team in Barys a few seasons ago, returned to the Kazakh capital. KHL.ru continues its report on the summer activity around the league with a look at Barys Nur-Sultan.

Last season

Barys, which two years ago seriously challenged the role of one of the Eastern giants, has now returned to the status of a solid, but middle-class team. The Nur-Sultan side was able to equally defeat contenders and lose to outsiders. The main strategic goal of a team teetering on the brink of the eight-team crown is to take points from direct competitors to the max, and Yuri Mikhailis and his men handled it, even if not perfectly, but quite successfully: Sibir and Neftekhimik finished the season ahead of them (by splitting points evenly), but they still left Amur (4-0 on points) and Avtomobilist (6-2) behind.

In the playoffs Barys got on Metallurg for the third year in a row – by the way, they defeated them in the last two games in the regular season. They also won their first Gagarin Cup game, but the Kazakh side team couldn’t do better.

The main plus for Barys was the top troika of Jakob Lilja, Curtis Volk, and Nikita Mikhailis, who was the most productive not only in the regular season (35 goals), but also in the entire season (39) – despite the early first-round exit. And the main disadvantage is the fact that, with the exception of Roman Starchenko, the rest of the forwards lagged far behind their leaders. Inside Barys, the second and third best units were variations of the same combination with Starchenko replacing either Lilja or Michailis; and the fourth (Kirill Savitsky, Cody Kunyk, and Starchenko) scored only seven times.

Roster

Departures

Goalie: Joni Ortio, HV 71 (SHL);

Defense: Olle Alsing, Leksand (SHL), Erik Martinsson HV 71 (SHL), Joe Morrow, HC Sochi, Valery Orekhov, Metallurg (RFA), Roman Savchenko;

Forwards: Jacob Berglund, Curtis Valk, Avtomobilist, Cody Kunyk, Karpat, Liiga, Jakob Lilja, Dynamo Moscow, Roman Starchenko, Spartak, Tomas Jurco.

Arrivals

Defense: Christopher Bigras, Chicago (AHL), Mikhail Grigoryev Metallurg, Jesse Graham, Ausburg (DEL), Emil Nurgaliyev; Saryarka (Kazakhstan), try-out, Vladislav Syomin, try-out; Rubin, VHL, Yury Sergiyenko try-out; Dynamo Pardubice (Czech Republic), Timur Fatkullin, try-out; Neftyanik (VHL):

Forwards: Jeremy Bracco, Krefeld (DEL), Anthony Louis, Texas (AHL), Kirill Maximov, CSKA, loan, Batyrlan Muratov, RoKi (Finland-2), try-out, Mikhail Rakhmanov, Saryarka (Kazakhstan), try-out.

Barys’ losses are quite serious. Only Mikhailis is remaining out of the top-three, or perhaps the top-four (including Starchenko, whose departure was a sensation of sorts). Although, looking from an optimistic standpoint, the fact that the Barys board managed to keep Nikita, whose contract expired, is a big plus.

Overall, the Barys front office will have to work hard to patch up holes in all three lines, primarily on the blue line.

Coaching

Andrei Skabelka returned to Barys, which is very good news for the Kazakh franchise. After all, it was under him that the Nur-Sultan side reached a fundamentally new level, and with his departure they couldn’t repeat that success. The saying goes that a person shouldn’t step into the same river twice, but sayings aren’t necessarily always right. It’s better to pay attention to some patterns. For example, Skabelka’s Russian career is developing according to the following pattern: success with Sibir – failure with Avangard; success with Barys – failure with Lokomotiv. That is, it seems that now the time of another success is coming.

Goalies

Nikita Boyarkin didn’t have a bad debut season in the KHL, but still, more was expected from him after his fantastic play at the 2021 World Championships. Nikita is capable of significant improvement, and the departure of Joni Ortio will only benefit him. Another thing is that the Barys’ boards probably won’t risk betting on the 23-year-old Boyarkin and the 24-year-old Andrei Shutov, and will try to attract an experienced foreign netminder.

Defense

Barys played only eight defensemen last season (including Darren Dietz, who moved to CSKA near the trade deadline), and now only Yegor Shalapov and Samat Daniyar remained in the squad. The addition of Canadians d-men Christopher Bigras and Jesse Graham is promising, but obviously not enough in terms of quantity. There’s also the former Magnitogorsk blueliner Mikhail Grigoriev and several hockey players on a try-out contract, but for now the defensive line seems to be quite problematic.

Offense

On offense, the situation is somewhat the opposite: the quantitative losses are not that great, but as noted above, three of the four most productive forwards are gone. Two of them are quite capable of being replaced by recruits Anthony Louis and Jeremy Bracco. Presumably Kirill Savitsky is now ready for a more important role.

Youngsters

The most notable young player in Barys’ lineup was defenseman Vitaly Orekhov, but he turned 23 in July and is already in Magnitka. Similarly, his colleague Samat Daniyar was also out of the ‘prospects’ category. Dinmukhamed Kaiyrzhan and Ansar Shaikhmeddenov appeared sporadically on the ice; Kaiyrzhan even scored one goal, but both are still far from earning a full-time spot at the KHL level.

Expectations

If Skabelka’s career momentum continues, Barys will take off. But based on the current roster, it’s unlikely to be an instantaneous success – it’ll likely take a couple of years. Nevertheless, they can still improve their last season’s result and perhaps move from eighth to seventh place in the Eastern conference.