Traktor makes waves, World Championship starts
The biggest noise of last week came from Chelyabinsk, where Traktor appointed a new head coach and acquired two Gagarin Cup winners for the roster. Barys also confirmed a new coach, Russia-25 completed a sweep of its May games and the 2024 World Championship got underway in the Czech Republic.
Traktor turns to Groulx
Benoit Groulx, who coached Canada to World Junior gold in 2015, is the new head coach at Traktor Chelyabinsk. The 56-year-old Quebecois had a modest playing career, primarily in France. As a coach, he worked extensively in the QMJHL. After his World Junior success, he took charge of Syracuse Crunch, the Lightning’s AHL affiliate and spent seven years there. During that time he worked with several players well known to the KHL, including Eddie Pasquale, Denis Yan, Alexander Volkov, Kristers Gudlevskis, Fredrik Claesson and Scott Wilson.
Gagarin Cup winners head to Chelyabinsk
Among the new acquisitions on Groulx’s roster at Traktor, former CSKA center Andrei Svetlakov signed a three-year deal. Svetlakov has over 500 KHL appearances and won three Gagarin Cups with the Muscovites. In addition, Alexander Kadeikin, a 2015 champion with SKA, also joined Traktor. The pair should strengthen the Chelyabinsk offense.
Nemirovsky goes to Barys
David Nemirovsky is returning to the KHL next season to take charge of Barys. The Canadian-born coach played for the Kazakh club in 2009-2010, producing 29 (15+14) points in 47 regular season games in the middle of a long spell playing the Russian Superleague and then the KHL. Later he had four seasons as head coach at Torpedo then took over at Sibir last season. That most recent appointment was not a big success and he left his position in December. Nemirovsky has a one-year contract in Astana.
Motormen extend Valk, Ebert
After confirming contract extension for two imports last week, Avtomobilist added Curtis Valk to the retained list. The Canadian-born Kazakh dual national signed up for two more seasons. Last term he had 35 (9+26) points in 75 games, helping Avto to its best ever playoff run. A day later, defenseman Nick Ebert inked his own one-year extension.
Russia-25 wraps up winning run
Last week saw three more international games between Russia-25 and Belarus. Along the way, Artemy Pleshkov completed a third successive shut-out. That gives him the most extended shut-out streak of any netminder after his debut for the national team. The run came to an end last week, but Russia kept on winning. Victories by 4-0, 6-2 and 4-2 completed a perfect series of five successive results against Kazakhstan and Belarus for Roman Rotenberg’s experimental roster.
Mixed start for Kazakhstan at Worlds
The IIHF World Championship got underway in the Czech Republic on Friday. Team Kazakhstan has most of the KHL interest, with much of the roster drawn from the Barys organization. The Kazakhs made a good start, beating France 3-1 in its opening game before falling 2-6 to Slovakia on Sunday. The French roster includes Avtomobilist’s Stephane Da Costa. He had a goal and an assist in Sunday’s overtime loss to Latvia, with Kaspars Daugavins grabbing his second OT winner in as many days.
More end-of-season nominations
The KHL announced the candidates for three more end-of-season awards. Coach of the year is a three-way battle between Metallurg’s Gagarin Cup winner Andrei Razin, Lokomotiv’s Ilya Nikitin and Andrei Kozyrev, who impressed in his first season after replacing Razin at Severstal. The Rookie of the year nominees include two Metallurg players – goalie Ilya Nabokov and forward Roman Kantserov. Torpedo’s Anton Silayev is the third contender. Finally, the Loyalty to Hockey prize will be contested by Evgeny Biryukov, who made his 1,000th KHL appearance this season. He’s up against Grigory Panin, his captain at Salavat Yulaev last season, and Sergei Shirokov of Avtomobilist.
