Bilyaletdinov’s 1,200th game, Kvartalnov’s return
KHL.ru keeps on analyzing potential milestones for the upcoming season.
Let’s start with the KHL records. In the 2023-2024 season, the leader for games played and victories, Dmitry Kvartalnov, returns to the League. He currently has 809 games, and he needs to play all 68 games of the regular season and 23 playoff games to reach 900, which is unlikely to happen since the Minsk franchise only had a maximum of seven games in each single Gagarin Cup runs.
Among his closest pursuers, Zinetula Bilyaletdinov continues his work, holding the fifth position. In the 2023-2024 season, theoretically, he can rise to second place and surpass Andrei Nazarov, Oleg Znarok, and Vladimir Krikunov. However, to catch up with the last name on that list, he would need to play 92 games – all 68 in the regular season and 24 in the elimination stage. Milestone games could be achieved by Andrei Skabelka (Barys), Alexei Kudashov (Dynamo Moscow), Andrei Razin (Metallurg), and Andrei Martemyanov (Amur).
In all national championships, Dmitry Kvartalnov holds the ninth position, with 31 games remaining to surpass Pyotr Vorobyov. After last season, Zinetula Bilyaletdinov moved up to third place, surpassing the legendary Viktor Tikhonov, with a total of 1198 games. Therefore, the home game on Sep 4th against Traktor could be Bilyaletdinov’s 1,200th in his career. He currently trails Valery Belousov by 104 games and Vladimir Krikunov by 279.
