Vasily Koshechkin: a goaltending giant
KHL.ru continues its series looking at the players and coaches who have become legends of the league. Today, we’re all about an Olympic and World Champion with two Gagarin Cups. Goalie Vasily Koshechkin won it all in a great career and announced his retirement at the end of last season, aged 40.
Emerging from behind the imports
Had it not been for Lada’s financial problems in 2005, it’s possible that Vasily Koshechkin would have remained an understudy. At that time, Pyotr Vorobyov’s team put its faith in import goalies. Canada’s Jean-Francois Labbe, Czech Jiri Trvaj and Finland’s Jussi Markkanen all played a leading role. In 2005-2006, another Czech, Adam Svoboda, was playing in Togliatti.
However, by the end of October it was clear that Lada’s sponsors could no longer finance the club. Immediately, more than 10 leading players, including Svoboda, left the club. They were replaced from the youth system and Koshechkin was promoted to starting goalie despite having little experience. That experience was not always encouraging: in the final game of the 2004-2005 season Koshechkin gave up a goal similar to Vladimir Kopata’s winner for Belarus in the 2002 Olympic quarterfinal against Tommy Salo’s Sweden.
However, this time, in November 2005, Koshechkin rose to the challenge. Far from collapsing, Lada thrived. The team finished a respective ninth in the regular season, then defeated defending champion Dynamo in the first round of the playoffs. Three of that Dynamo team – head coach Vladimir Krikunov and forwards Maxim Sushinsky and Alexander Kharitonov – were fresh from representing Russia at the Torino Olympics. In round two, Lada battled hard against Dave King’s Metallurg, which finished the season 29 points clear of second place. Togliatti’s youngsters produced a sensational 2-1 victory in the opening game and, despite a 0-7 thrashing in game two, ensured that the final encounters in the series were all settled by single-goal margins.
Koshechkin played a huge role on that team. Now the experts were talking up this giant goalie, who stood two meters tall and weighed more than 100 kg. he was tipped for international action and a move to a wealthier club. Those predictions soon came true. In 2007, Koshechkin played at the World Championship in Moscow, then confirmed a move to Ak Bars.
15.09.2008 KHL debut
10.05.2009 World Champion
21.11.2009 First game for Metallurg
Olympic gold
In 2007 Koshechkin won bronze at his first international tournament. It might have been gold, but a single moment in overtime in the semi-final against Finland ended that dream. Once again, the home ice curse struck at the World Championship: from 1986-2013, no host nation won the trophy. However, Koshechkin’s biggest international successes were still to come. Two years later he helped Russia win the Worlds, then he got a silver in 2010. He wasn’t the starting goalie in either tournament, but he still had a full set of World Championship medals.
His biggest tournament came in 2018. At the PyeongChang Olympics he was Russia’s lead goalie for the first time at a major championship. And he responded with great numbers: GAA of 1.38, stopping 93.7% of shots.
Yet he might have missed out on that Olympics. Koshechkin had not played for his country since 2013. “He wasn’t even on our radar before the Olympics,” admitted Roman Rotenberg, who was Team Russia’s GM at the time. But his solid performance in the 2017 Gagarin Cup final, coupled with the inexperience of Igor Shestyorkin and Ilya Sorokin, put Koshechkin back in the spotlight.
“Olympic gold is something I’ll remember for my entire life,” Koshechkin told Sport Express. “Playing in a tournament like that was a boyhood dream, and I was really lucky that it came true. It’s not easy to be the #1 goalie for the national team. I earned that chance thanks to my efforts over several years. And I’m still ready to say thank you to the team management and Oleg Znarok’s coaching staff, who believed in me and gave me a chance.”
30.04.2014 First Gagarin Cup
19.04.2016 Second Gagarin Cup
16.04.2017 Playoff MVP
Three finals in four years
In club hockey, not everything went to plan for Koshechkin after he left Lada. At Ak Bars he once again found himself playing second fiddle to an import. After America’s Robert Esche arrived, Vasily’s game time dried up and he returned to Togliatti. This was right before the KHL’s first season. Koshechkin starred throughout that campaign, allowing fewer than two goals a game and stopping more than 93% of shots in the regular season, and again in the playoffs. After starting the following season on his hometown team, Koshechkin moved to Metallurg only to lose his place to Georgy Gelashvili, whose Lokomotiv team had reached a final and a semi-final in the previous two seasons.
Thus Koshechkin swapped one steel town for another and joined Severstal, where, in his own words, he played “three fantastic seasons”. In 2012-2013, Severstal was a real force. The Steelmen finished fifth in the West and defeated Lokomotiv in the first round of the playoffs. However, it was clear that a host of top players would move on to bigger clubs, and that’s how it played out. Vadim Shipachyov and Evgeny Ketov went to SKA, while Koshechkin returned to Metallurg. In the three seasons he was away, Magnitka had been unable to win its first Gagarin Cup.
The giant goalie’s return was a key piece in that jigsaw. In his first season, Metallurg won the championship. As always, the netminder played a big part in that success. But it’s worth noting other changes ahead of the 2013-2014 season. Veteran Canadian coach Mike Keenan took over behind the bench and Koshechkin was joined by more new arrivals, including freescoring Canadian blue liner Chris Lee plus forwards Danis Zaripov and Jan Kovar. Those two formed a lethal line with Sergei Mozyakin, which became one of the best in Russian hockey history.
It's fair to say that Metallurg team was one of the strongest in the KHL’s history. The results speak for themselves. In 2016, Magnitka won the Gagarin Cup again. One year later, it was back in the final. Three finals in four years is a fantastic result, and one that could not be achieved without a top-class goaltender.
Koshechkin always kept himself in great physical condition. Therefore it was no surprise that he kept playing until he was 40. Aged 39, Vasily played one last Gagarin Cup final for Metallurg against CSKA. He was close to a third championship. Up 3-1 in the series, the Steelmen led 2-1 in the third period of game five, but could not hold on and lost in overtime. That proved to be the key moment in the series as CSKA rallied to complete the fightback and snatch the cup.
25.02.2018 Olympic Champion
21.10.2022 90th KHL shut-out and 105th in the Russian Championship
06.01.2023 Played against a Lokomotiv team that included his son Maxim Mayorov on its roster
19.03.2023 Last game in the KHL
Koshechkin holds several individual records. He has played more games than any other KHL goalie in regular season (611) and playoffs (154), and leads the league in wins (292 and 86). In addition, with 75 shut-outs in KHL regular season play, he is well clear of his closest rivals Alexander Yeryomenko and Konstantin Barulin.
Dossier
Vasily Vladimirovich Koshechkin
Born 27 March 1983 in Togliatti
Career: Olimpia Kirovo-Chepetsk, Neftyanik Almetievsk 2002-2003; Lada 2003-2007, 2008, 2010; Ak Bars 2007-2008; Severstal 2010-2013; Metallurg 2009-2010, 2013-23.
Honors: Olympic Champion (2018), World Championship gold (2009), silver (2010) and bronze (2007). Gagarin Cup winner (2014, 2016), Russian championship silver (2005, 2017, 2022) and bronze (2004).
