Review of the season. Sibir: strong powerplay units and a great battle against Salavat Yulaev
KHL.ru reviews the 2024-2025 season for each team. Under the guidance of Vadim Yepanchintsev, Sibir returned to the playoffs and put up a fight against Salavat Yulaev.
Sibir began the 2024-2025 season with an unpleasant losing streak — in the first game, Vadim Yepanchintsev’s team lost to Avangard in the Siberian Derby (1:2), then failed to score against Avtomobilist (0:4), and in the next game was crushed by CSKA (2:8). However, after that cold shower, the team responded with an excellent six-game winning streak. Overall, Sibir had a mixed season. On the one hand, the team had some winning streaks, they were brilliant on the power play (26.9% in the regular season), and Denis Kostin was phenomenal in goal. On the other hand, those winning streaks were sometimes followed by equally long stretches of poor results. At even strength, Sibir was one of the least effective teams, and in general, their scoring left much to be desired for their fans.
Sibir was the last team to secure a playoff spot in 2025, but by the end of the regular season, they managed to overtake Admiral and finish seventh in the East. That pitted Sibir against Salavat Yulaev in the first round. The Gagarin Cup run started nightmarishly for Sibir — 0:7 and 2:8 on the road. But at home, the Siberians transformed, playing pragmatic and winning hockey. With 2:0 and 2:1 victories in Novosibirsk, the series was tied — something hard to believe after the games in Ufa. The teams then exchanged home wins with identical 5:2 scores. Everything came down to the seventh game.
At the beginning of that decisive match, a controversial moment sparked much debate — the referees disallowed a Sibir goal, ruling that the puck had not fully crossed the goal line. In the second period, Salavat scored twice on Denis Kostin. In the third, Sibir got one back thanks to Taylor Beck, but the team couldn’t manage to force overtime.
Best players
Denis Kostin spent the season as Sibir’s starting goalie. In the regular season, he played 47 games and earned 22 wins, posting outstanding stats — a 93% save percentage (third-best in the league), a 2.28 goals-against average, and six shutouts. In the Gagarin Cup playoffs, he recorded a 91.1% save percentage and a 3.09 GAA. With each game, Kostin faced more and more shots — in the sixth and seventh games of the elimination stage, he made 33 and 34 saves, respectively.
The Gagarin Cup champion joined Sibir ahead of the 2024-2025 season and immediately became a key figure — both in the locker room and on the ice, Shirokov brought great value. Over the course of the season, he played 68 games and tallied 43 points (19 goals, 24 assists), finishing as the team’s third-highest scorer.
The 2024-2025 season was the best of Trevor Murphy’s career — the defenseman scored 58 points (13 goals, 45 assists) in the regular season and added another six (2 goals, 4 assists) in the seven-game series against Salavat Yulaev, making him Sibir’s top scorer. Of course, Murphy wasn’t flawless on defense — his minus-23 differential speaks to that — but he was a major engine behind Sibir’s offensive efforts.
Coaching
Vadim Yepanchintsev completed his first season at the helm of Sibir. Under his leadership, the team won 29 games in the regular season and returned to the playoffs.
“We fully understood why we alternated between wins and losses — that’s part of the team’s inner workings. We need to draw the right conclusions to avoid repeating this in the future. We tried to focus on offense, but we actually performed better playing in a more conservative way. Our positional attacks didn’t always work. We lacked goals at even strength to secure wins. But we were effective on the rush and on the power play,” the coach said when summing up the season.
Best Game
On the first day of November, Sibir visited Metallurg. The hosts started the match strong, scoring twice in the first period. In the second, captain Sergei Shirokov responded by getting one back, but Nikita Mikhailis’ goal early in the third restored Metallurg’s two-goal lead.
Sibir refused to give up — Shirokov completed his brace in the 49th minute, and Vladislav Kara scored two more in the closing minutes. Kara’s second goal, scored at 57:14, became the game-winner for Sibir.
Youngsters
On defense, attention should first be paid to Artyom Zhukov. The 22-year-old blueliner played 36 games during the 2024-2025 season, averaging 15 minutes on the ice and recording 4 points (1 goal, 3 assists) with a plus-3 rating.
Also making his debut for Sibir this season was 18-year-old Yaroslav Belyakov, who played 15 games with an average ice time of 6:07.
Sibir’s rising star is 18-year-old forward Alexander Pershakov, who turned 18 during the 2024-2025 season. Alexander made his top-level debut back in September and recorded an assist in his very first game.
Twenty-year-old Vladimir Mikhalyov played fewer KHL games this season than last — just five in total. However, he was far from lacking in game time overall, playing in the JHL (18 games, 7+7), VHL (29 games, 3+3), and even the KHL 3x3 Championship (18 games, 14+6).
The Klimovich brothers also appeared for the team. Yegor, who participated in both the JHL Challenge Cup and the 2025 KHL Fonbet All-Star Game, played four games without recording a point. Ivan saw more ice time — 15 regular-season games (0+2) and five playoff contests (2+0).
Summer work
The team has suffered some losses — Denis Kostin has joined Torpedo, Nikita Korotkov has moved to Metallurg, and Taylor Beck received an offer from Geneve-Servette in Switzerland. While Sibir has not brought in any new goaltenders, their forward group is seeing some interesting developments. The team signed former captains of Admiral and Traktor — Nikita Soshnikov and Vladimir Tkachyov. The lineup was also strengthened by Gagarin Cup champion Arkhip Nekolenko, who had a standout season with Lada.
The club’s management mentioned ongoing talks with Trevor Murphy. The Canadian remains a free agent for now, but it seems Sibir has already filled the role of offensive defenseman with David Farrance — in the 2024-2025 season, the American blueliner played for KooKoo in Finland and posted 37 points (2 goals, 35 assists) with a plus-26 rating over 57 games.
