Avangard. Best line in the league and an emergency coaching change
Avangard rebuilt its first line (then dismantled it again), battled to the very last for top spot in the East then replaced the head coach during the playoffs before losing to finalist Lokomotiv in seven games. KHL.ru looks back on an eventful season.
The regular season started with five wins from six games, albeit that loss was an unexpected 1-5 failure against Amur. The end of September brought a blip with four straight defeats, which turned out to be the longest skid of Avangard’s season. The turnaround came fast, and as October moved into November we saw a 10-game hot streak.
Right from the start, the top line clicked. The coaches introduced newcomer Ryan Spooner and by January the Tkachyov-Spooner-Boucher line led the league for goals and nobody caught them. Despite some changes at center, that first line contributed 66 goals (the third best tally in KHL history). Right until the end, Avangard competed for top spot in the East, only losing out with defeat to Metallurg on the final day.
That sent the Hawks into a first-round playoff engagement with Lada. This was straightforward: winning the first three games, losing one, then wrapping it up in game five back in Omsk.
Then came Lokomotiv. The opening game went to the Railwaymen after a mistake in overtime, but the second was a disastrous 0-7 loss that spelled the end of Mikhail Kravets’ time behind the bench. Sergei Zvyagin was replacement, shock therapy almost salvaged the series. Only a 0-2 loss in game seven brought an end to the season.
Best players
76 games, 89 (53+36) points
Everybody knows that Boucher is an elite goalscorer. But even by his standards, the 2023/24 season was something special. In the regular season his 44 goals set a new club record and put him within four goals of Sergei Mozyakin’s all-time record. He also set a new Avangard record for points in a regular season with 78, storming past Roman Cervenka’s mark of 61. And he overtook another Czech, Jan Marek, to set a KHL record for points from an import in a regular season.
76 games, 86 (20+66) points
Tkachyov was a key figure on Avangard’s offense: he’s the foundation around which the game is built, the best passer on the team and second only to Nikita Gusev in KHL assists last season. It was no coincidence that Gusev, Tkachyov and Boucher were the nominees for the Golden Stick, awarded to the regular season MVP. Although Gusev took the prize for the league, on a club level there was no doubt that Tkachyov was the man. Maybe he had fewer points than Boucher, but his impact on the game was far greater.
78 games, 58 (10+48) points
Sharipzyanov was the top-scoring defenseman in the KHL last season. He’s only the second man after Alexander Nikishin to score 50 points in a regular season (53 points). On Nov. 2 he scored a hat-trick on SKA, joining Anssi Salmela as only the second defenseman to score three in a game. For Sharipzyanov, the 2023-2024 campaign was a real explosion – previously he never had more than 26 points in a season. His importance to the team was underlined by his game-time: 24:32 on average.
75 games, 67 (24+43) points
The center, who arrived in the summer to bolster the first line, wasted no time adapting to his new role. Spooner set a club record for a scoring streak from te start of a KHL season (10 points in seven games). In total he was third in team scoring behind Boucher and Tkachyov and he enjoyed regular time on the first power play unit. Avangard made the most of his strengths and he never looked out of place on the first line. In comparison with Corban Knight, who centered the top line last season, Spooner was superior in everything except face-off wins.
Coaching
Mikhail Kravets took the team to the Eastern final in 2022-2023 but, according to media reports, his position was under review in the summer. He eventually signed an extension on May 23 and GM Anton Kuryanov explained that the delay was due to exploring “different candidates”. Under Kravets, the team had a good regular season and only missed first place in the East on the final day. However, a 0-7 thrashing in game two of the second round of the playoffs was the last straw and Kravets was abruptly dismissed in the thick of post season.
Sergei Zvyagin was brought in as a “firefighter”. As interim head coach he came close to salvaging the season and, on April 1, he was rewarded with a contract as head coach for the coming campaign.
Best game
With such a prolific top line, there were many memorable games. But the best was February’s home game against SKA, which ended in an unlikely 9-5 victory. Former Hawk Arseny Gritsyuk put the visitor ahead in the third minute, but Avangard hit back to lead 2-1 at the intermission. After the middle frame it was 3-3, but things exploded in the third. Boucher completed a hat-trick, Ivan Nikolishin scored a shorty into an empty net, and there were further tallies from Ivan Igumnov and Mark Verba. SKA’s response came from Pavel Dedunov (another ex-Avangard man) and Stepan Falkovsky.
Young players
Avangard used nine U23s in 2023-2024. Goalie Andrei Mishurov had 29 games, winning 15 of them. Despite his youth, Semyon Chistyakov is in his fourth season with the first team and in each of them he’s had at least 40 games. The most improved player last season was Mikhail Gulyayev, who was just 18 at the time: in regular season he missed just four games and scored his first KHL goal. In the playoffs, he featured in every game. Another fully-fledged first-teamer was Nikita Kholodilin, who looked handy in the bottom six.
In addition, Artyom Murylyov, Denis Vengryzhanovsky, Alexander Filatiev и Ilya Reingardt all played more than 20 games and contributed some points.
Summer work
Avangard was one of the busiest clubs in the summer transfer market, both in terms of quantity and quality of trades. Mikhail Berdin, who has long deserved a chance at a big club, will strengthen the goaltending options. Pavel Koledov, Darren Dietz and Alexander Solovyov represent a significant upgrade on defesne. The first two a D-men of a high standard, while Solovyov had the best season of his career at lowly Admiral and earned an invitation to return to Omsk.
On offense, Avangard brought Linden Vey back to the KHL, possibly as a replacement for Spooner. In addition, Cole Kassels arrives from AHL, while trades brought Lev Komissarov and Alexander Perevalov from CSKA and Lokomotiv respectively.
So far there haven’t been many departures. Valentin Pyanov went back to Sibir, Vengryzhanovsky headed to Sochi as part of the Berdin trade and Mishurov joined Admiral on loan.
