First round’s finest

The Kontinental Hockey League’s commission has determined the best players of the Gagarin Cup playoffs’ first round in four categories.

In the first round of the Gagarin Cup playoffs, the league’s teams played 43 players, with 387 players (23 goalies, 122 defensemen, and 242 forwards) taking part in the action. The scoring was at 4.95 goals per game.

- Best goalie for the first time in his career was Evgeny Alikin (Avtomobilist), who won four games from five against Ak Bars. The Yekaterinburg netminder faced 127 shots, or 25.4 per night, posting a 96.06% saves percentage and a goals-against average of 1.22. He also posted a shutout in game two. Alikin, at his debut in the Gagarin Cup playoffs, was the first Avtomobilist goalie to be awarded the Best goalie honors.

- Best defenseman for the first time in his career was Robin Press (Metallurg), who scored 7 (2+5) points in six games against Amur, posting a plus-6 differential. Presso also recorded one hit and blocked five shots.

- Best forward for the third time in his career was Reid Boucher (Avangard), who scored seven goals in five games against Lada. Two of his seven tallies were game-winner for Avangard, and he posted a hat-trick in game three. Boucher also recorded one hit, blocked two shots, and had two takeaways.

- Best rookie for the first time in his career was goalie Ilya Nabokov (Metallurg), who won four games of six against Amur. The Magnitogorsk netminder faced 183 shots, or 30.5 per night, posting a 92.90% saves percentage and a goals-against average of 2.17. Nabokov is the second goalie in the KHL history to be awarded the Best rookie honors in the playoffs, following Andrei Vasilevsky, awarded three times in the 2014 Gagarin Cup playoffs.