Review of the season. Metallurg: failed title defense and Kantserov’s breakout season

KHL.ru keeps on reviewing the 2024-2025 season for each team. Metallurg suffered from a first-round exit for the first time in five years and for the fourth time in KHL history.

The saying goes as it’s harder to defend a championship title than to win it in the first place — and with good reason. Especially considering that Metallurg captured theirs ahead of schedule, so to speak: when the club’s management hired Andrei Razin, they didn’t set lofty goals for his first season, wisely giving him time to build a new team.

Despite retaining almost the entire core of the championship roster (though failing to strengthen it), Metallurg began the new season in far-from-optimal shape. Nikita Mikhailis and Valery Orekhov missed part of the preseason and the start of the regular season due to international duty with Team Kazakhstan, while Daniil Vovchenko, Denis Zernov, Roman Kantserov, and Danila Yurov were sidelined with injuries — which, incidentally, continued to plague the team throughout the year. Filling the gaps with players from the VHL, Metallurg put up a good fight in the Opening Cup game against Lokomotiv (2:3), then beat SKA in OT (5:4), but followed that up with four straight losses before finally edging Neftekhimik in a shootout (1:0). Their first regulation win came only on Sept 23, and their first win by at least a three-goal margin didn’t come until October.

From October onward, though, things began to stabilize. Despite periodic injuries, Metallurg avoided long slumps for the rest of the regular season, finishing third in the Eastern Conference and fourth overall.

It was very unfortunate for Metallurg that Avangard picked up steam at the same time after New Year’s. With the third seed, one might expect a somewhat easier opponent in the first round — not a reloaded Avangard team that had been rebuilt mid-season and hit peak form by spring. Judging by how Metallurg played in the playoffs, they could likely have beaten any other team in the East — perhaps with the exception of Traktor. Even Avangard was within reach, if not for a few costly individual mistakes. Such mistakes are inevitable in hockey, but they aren’t always fatal — unfortunately for Metallurg, theirs were.

In the series against Avangard, only the first and second periods of the opening game were true misfires. Starting from the third period of that game, Metallurg looked much like the team that won the Cup a year ago. Still, after three games they were trailing 0–3 in the series. It felt unfair: the games were tight, and often Metallurg even held the advantage. The Ural team fought back to force game six with two wins, but ultimately dropped the deciding match and were eliminated.

Best Players

Roman Kantserov
13 goals, 27 assists in 53 games

Kantserov already began transforming from a rising star into one of Metallurg’s offensive leaders during last year’s playoffs, and he solidified that status this season — even though part of it was spent recovering from injury. No other Metallurg forward recorded more points, and in average ice time, Roman trailed only three defensemen on the team.

Ilya Nabokov
54 games, 25 wins, 92.2% save percentage, 2.21 GAA

Compared to last season — and especially to the playoffs — Nabokov’s performance was slightly less impressive, but that’s mostly because he had set such a high bar the previous year. Like many of his teammates, Ilya also dealt with injuries, yet still ended up, along with Zach Fucale, as the busiest goaltender of the regular season (49 games each; and if including three more games at the Channel One Cup — which came immediately after an injury — Nabokov even surpassed Fucale).

Robin Press
7 goals, 35 assists in 66 games

Press was the only Metallurg player to outscore Kantserov — and he’s a defenseman. He’s not flawless in his own zone, but his offensive contributions more than make up for his shortcomings in the defensive end. That said, the series against Avangard was an exception — there, the trade-off didn’t work out. Still, that’s no reason to downplay Press’s overall importance to Metallurg.

Coaching

The reigning champions getting knocked out in the first round will go down in the history books, while the unfavorable circumstances — the lack of roster reinforcements during the offseason and the high number of injuries to key players — will quickly be forgotten. Just like the fact that the elimination itself was far from disgraceful: it came in a very evenly matched series. But to make sure it isn’t forgotten too soon, let’s say it once more. Let’s also remind everyone that Andrei Razin won the championship ahead of schedule; and let’s add that under his guidance, young players are developing impressively, the team plays attractive hockey, and is tactically flexible when adjustments are needed.

Off the ice, Razin often is, to put it mildly, not the most diplomatic figure. But that has nothing to do with his coaching ability.

Best Game

At the start of the season, Metallurg lost seven of its first ten games, with a combined score of 22:30. Then they rattled off four straight wins — including a 7:0 demolition of CSKA. And at that time, CSKA was in solid form, having collected points in six consecutive games.

That victory tied Metallurg’s all-time KHL record for largest win. The original record was set in December 2012, when the team featured Sergei Mozyakin along with NHL lockout stars Evgeny Malkin, Ryan O’Reilly, and Sergei Gonchar, and beat Amur 7:0 — a team that finished second-to-last that season.
As for CSKA, this wasn’t their worst loss ever — they were one goal away. Their record defeat remains the 0:8 loss to that same Amur, eleven months earlier, in 2012.

Youngsters

A year ago, Metallurg became the youngest championship-winning team in KHL history. All the players are now a year older, but that hasn’t changed much — this season, only Sochi, Severstal, and Torpedo had a lower average age.

Kantserov and Nabokov were already mentioned above. Alexander Smolin did an excellent job backing up Nabokov, and head coach Andrei Razin even trusted him enough to start a playoff game when the team was down 0–2 in the series — not because Ilya had played poorly in the previous game, but simply to give him a rest.

Danila Yurov’s season was derailed by injuries, but whenever he was in the lineup — even not fully fit — Metallurg looked like a stronger team with him than without. On the other hand, Andrei Kozlov was the only player on the roster who suited up for every game of the season, regularly logging over ten minutes of ice time in most appearances.

Summer Work

Metallurg has already extended contracts with a fairly large group of players, but at this point, they’ve lost more than they’ve gained. Nikita Kamalov has signed with Severstal, while Troy Josephs and Dmitry Moiseyev have joined Sochi. Borna Rendulic was not offered a new deal, while Vladislav Yeryomenko recently signed with CSKA. Yurov will try to make the jump to the NHL. Nabokov has also signed an NHL contract, but an agreement is in place for him to remain with Metallurg next season on loan.

So far, the team has added just two new players: forwards Derek Barach from Vityaz and Nikita Korotkov from Sibir. There have also been changes on the coaching staff — Vladimir Vorobyov replaces Alexei Simakov as Razin’s assistant, and goaltending coach Klemen Mohoric is returning to the club after spending last season with CSKA. He previously worked with Metallurg for four years.