Salavat season preview: a legend behind the bench

Salavat Yulaev will be led into battle by a new head coach, who has already won the Gagarin Cup with the Ufa franchise as a player. KHL.ru checks whether the Ufa side will manage to blend its new players and the young forces that showed themselves in last year’s Gagarin Cup playoffs.

In September 2021, Salavat Yulaev had the best start in its KHL history with a seven-game winning streak. In fact, one of their opponents was Metallurg, who would end up being the best team in the regular season: on September 7 in Magnitogorsk, Ufa tallied seven goals against Magnitka’s two. All told, Ufa had 10 wins in its first 11 games of the season. Importantly, the team played the regular season without major setbacks and extended losing streaks, which helped them finish with the third seed in the Eastern conference.

In the first round they took on Sibir and won 4-1, although it would be hardly appropriate to call the series an easy one for Salavat. Especially considering that international players left the team after the first elimination game. The players from the club’s system, who replaced them, proved themselves and helped the team move on. The next opponent was Traktor and here, too, everything was difficult – at first, the teams swapped victories, but in the fifth and sixth games, the Chelyabinsk side took the upper hand with the same score of 2-1. Despite the result, Ufa can take credit for the playoffs, considering the situation in which they find themselves all of sudden.

Roster

Arrivals

Goalies: Ilya Ezhov (Vityaz), Andrei Kareyev (TPS, Liiga), Alexander Kuleshov (Muskegon, USHL);

Defense: Ryan Murphy (Grand Rapids, AHL);

Forwards: Stanislav Bocharov (Avtomobilist), Alexander Chmelevski (San Jose, NHL), Ivan Drozdov (Spartak, trade), Josh Ho-Sang (Toronto, AHL), Evgeny Timkin (SKA).

Retained

Goalie: Dmitry Braginsky,

Defense: Viktor Antipin, Evgeny Biryukov, Pavel Koledov, Shakir Mukhamadullin, Igor Myasishchev, Mikhail Naumenkov, Grigory Panin;

Forwards: Danil Alalykin, Danil Bashkirov, Alexander Kadeikin, Vladislav Kartayev, Gleb Kuzmin, Nikolai Kulyomin, Artyom Pimenov, Alexei Pustozyorov, Stepan Sannikov, Daniil Skorikov, Sergei Shmelyov.

Departures

Goalies: Juha Metsola (EHC Kloten, Switzerland), Alexander Sharychenkov (CSKA);

Defense: Dinar Khafizullin (Ak Bars), Andrei Zubarev;

Forwards: Pyotr Khokhryakov (Traktor), Viktor Tikhonov (retired).

To replace the Finnish legion, which almost completely left the club before the end of the season, Salavat Yulaev’s management has signed some good foreigners from overseas. Josh Ho-Sang and Alexander Chmelevski are the main transfers to come in. Both scored 30+ points in the AHL last season – the former had an Olympics participation under his belt, the latter had silver in the junior and bronze in the senior World Championships. The Ufa club also acquired Ivan Drozdov, brought back Andrei Kareyev from Finland, and added Stanislav Bocharov and Evgeny Timkin to their offensive lines.

Another undoubted success of Salavat managers is the signing of a new contract with Alexander Kadeikin. Many experts consider him one of the best Russian KHL centers, first of all, by his play on the faceoff dots. In addition to him, nine players extended their contracts with the club, including Stepan Sannikov, Sergei Shmelyov, Nikolai Kulemin, Pavel Koledov, and Evgeny Biryukov.

The biggest loss is seen in the departure of Juha Metsola, who was number one for four straight seasons in Ufa. Viktor Tikhonov announced his retirement, Dinar Khafizullin moved to Ak Bars, and Pyotr Khokhryakov joined Traktor.

Head Coach

Despite the well-known circumstances, Tomi Lamsa finished the 2021-2022 campaign with the team. In May, he was replaced by Viktor Kozlov, not a stranger to Ufa – in 2011, as the team’s captain, he led Salavat Yulaev to their first, and so far, only Gagarin Cup triumph. Four years later, he finished his career as a player and joined the coaching staff at Metallurg Magnitogorsk. He worked there for five seasons, returned to Ufa as an assistant and now became the head coach himself. Kozlov already has such experience – in the 2017-2018 season he was in charge of Metallurg, replacing Ilya Vorobyov in December 2017. At that time, Magnitogorsk reached the conference semifinals, but lost to future champions Ak Bars.

Goalies

Salavat Yulayev will go into the season with a revamped goaltending squad. Yes, there is Dmitry Braginsky, who extended his contract with the club, but he is likely to be only Kozlov’s third choice at this position. Kareyev and Ilya Ezhov, who moved from Vityaz, will compete for the number one spot. The former had silver in the Finnish Liiga for two seasons in a row with very good numbers, the latter spent three years with Vityaz, where he looked pretty good.

Defense

The Ufa club's defense is clearly understaffed so far, with only eight blueliners at Kozlov’s disposal. Ryan Murphy, who has already played for Neftekhimik and Dinamo Minsk in the KHL, will try to substitute for Andrei Zubarev and Khafizullin, who left Salavat Yulayev. The team still have an open import spot, thus may focus on strengthening its defensive line.

Offense

The offensive line looks very good on paper. Ho-Sang and Chmelevski started to show themselves since the first exhibitions – even though they haven’t scored much so far, but both have been generating danger near the opposition goal on a regular basis. Kadeikin’s strengths, in addition to his play on the dots, are his size, his eye for the pass, as well as his ability to come up with a scoring chance himself. It will be interesting to see how Drozdov performs – the club probably count on him as one of its leaders. Bocharov will certainly add depth to the lineup, while Timkin is almost a direct replacement for Khokhryakov in the bottom six.

Youngsters

The situation with the imports leaving in the playoffs gave the Ufa youth an opportunity to get invaluable experience in the elimination round. Many of them at the age of 20 have already become solid core players – Danil Alalykin, Alexey Pustozyorov, Shakir Mukhamadullin, and Danil Bashkirov. And in the new season, expectations from their game will only increase, so the demand from them will be much higher. Among those who will be making their KHL debut is Toros goalie Semyon Vyazovoy – he was in the top-5 in the goals-against average and top-10 in save percentage last term in the JHL.

Expectations

It’s hard to say yet whether Salavat Yulayev has become stronger in terms of roster: first of all, the star newcomers will need time to adapt and second, there will probably be more signings as the season unwinds. The last playoffs made it clear, however, that Ufa’s youngsters, along with their more experienced players, are a formidable force. If the coaches can figure out the perfect formula for blending youth and experience, the team should be able to improve on last year’s results and contend for something bigger than the conference semifinals.