Review of the season. Salavat Yulaev: Leivo’s golden stick, Vyazovoi’s breakout, and a trip to the semifinals
KHL.ru keeps on reviewing the 2024-2025 season for the league’s teams. Today, it’s Salavat Yulaev’s turn.
Last summer, Salavat Yulaev lost Ivan Drozdov, who had been the team’s second-leading scorer the previous season. However, ahead of the 2024-2025 campaign, the team strengthened its group of foreign players by signing Sheldon Rempal and Nathan Todd. These additions turned out to be excellent moves — the Canadians adapted well to the league, and overall, Salavat’s international players elevated their performance to a new level, helping the Ufa club achieve great results.
Under head coach Viktor Kozlov, Salavat Yulaev committed to an exciting, offensive style of hockey — their games were consistently entertaining to watch. While at the start of the season only the imports were putting up points, as the regular season progressed, the Russian players also found their form. This collective effort allowed Salavat to compete with Traktor for the top spot in the Eastern Conference. The Ufa side ultimately finished second, just three points behind Chelyabinsk, and placed third in the overall league standings — the same position they finished in during the 2010-2011 season, when they went on to win the Gagarin Cup.
But neither the stellar performance of the imports nor their position in the standings guaranteed Salavat Yulaev success in the playoffs — memories of two consecutive first-round exits from the Gagarin Cup still loomed in the minds of players, coaches, and fans.
The first-round series against Sibir began with two blowout wins but turned into a grueling seven-game battle. The second round against Spartak was another emotional rollercoaster — a win in game one, followed by three straight losses, then a comeback capped by a 3:2 victory in game seven. The true hero of the series was Alexei Vasilevsky, a defenseman who scored the game-winning goals in both game six and seven.
Salavat Yulaev also started the series against Lokomotiv with a win — and an away win at that — marking their first trip to the semifinals since 2019. However, that was where Salavat Yulaev’s playoff run in 2025 came to an end — Yaroslavl won the next four games and proved to be the stronger team.
Top Players
Joshua Leivo was the top scorer and leading goal-scorer of the regular season, tallying 80 points (49 goals + 31 assists) in 62 games. He broke Sergei Mozyakin’s record for the most goals scored in a single regular season. Leivo was voted Most Valuable Player of the regular season by league coaches and, for the first time in his career, won the Golden Stick award. In the playoffs, his performance was somewhat mixed but still productive, with 15 points (2 goals + 13 assists) in 14 games.
The 29-year-old Canadian completed his first season in the KHL and nearly averaged a point per game in the regular season — 61 points (31 goals + 30 assists) in 68 games. He then became the top scorer of the Gagarin Cup playoffs, collecting 21 points (8 goals + 13 assists) in 19 games.
Chmelevski is the undisputed leader of Salavat Yulaev, consistently improving his production with each KHL season. In the 2024-2025 campaign, he recorded 72 points (33 goals + 39 assists) and ranked among the top three scorers for the team in both the regular season and the elimination stage.
Coaching
It’s fair to say that Viktor Kozlov is a legendary figure in Ufa hockey. In 2011, Kozlov captained Salavat Yulaev to a championship, and this past season marked his third year as the team’s head coach.
In his first two seasons behind the bench, the results were mixed — a strong regular season finish in the top three, but first-round playoff exits. However, in his third year, Kozlov clearly learned from past mistakes, and his 2024-2025 Salavat Yulaev side was noticeably stronger.
Viktor Kozlov, Head Coach of Salavat Yulaev:
“I think it was a good season. Finishing in the top four is a major achievement, considering what we’ve been through in recent years. The guys took a step forward in their development — both as individuals and as players. There were many positives, despite the challenges we faced during the season. The way we handled it all with dignity, and how we finished — I’d rate the season as satisfactory.”
Kozlov now leads all Salavat Yulaev KHL coaches in total games coached (238) and wins (122), with a 51.2% win rate.
Best Game
Starting the playoffs with a shutout win is always good — starting with a dominant shutout is even better!
Salavat Yulaev’s opening game of the 2025 Gagarin Cup Playoffs was a masterclass: a 7:0 victory over Sibir on home ice. Alexander Samonov earned the shutout, the team scored twice on the power play, Nathan Todd recorded four points (1 goal + 3 assists), and Alexander Chmelevski added a double.
In short, on March 27, Salavat Yulaev delivered a perfect performance.
Youngsters
Without exaggeration, the season was a true breakout for Semyon Vyazovoi. The 22-year-old netminder played 28 games in the regular season, led the entire league in save percentage (93.8%), and ranked second in goals-against average (1.80). He also recorded five shutouts. Vyazovoy’s moment truly came during the Gagarin Cup playoffs: though he started behind the more experienced Alexander Samonov, he eventually took over as the number-one goalie for Salavat Yulaev.
On defense, Yaroslav Tsulygin stood out. Born in 2004, he was the team’s third-highest-scoring d-man with 23 points (9 goals + 14 assists) and had a plus-23 differential. Another young defenseman, 22-year-old Alexander Komarov, was a regular in the lineup with 56 games, averaging nearly ten minutes per game, posting 1 goal + 7 assists, and a minus-1 rating.
Among the forwards, 19-year-old Artyom Nabiev had a noticeable debut KHL season, appearing in 74 games and scoring 16 points (7 goals + 9 assists). 21-year-old Artyom Gorshkov also made an impact in limited minutes — he played 59 games and tallied 3 goals + 5 assists.
Two more young forwards made their KHL debuts: 19-year-old Maksim Velikov (4 games, 0+1) and 18-year-old Alexander Zharovsky (7 games, 0+1), the latter debuting in the playoffs. In fact, Zharovsky recorded an assist in game one of the semifinals.
Summer work
During the offseason, Mikhail Naumenkov, Nathan Todd, and Scott Wilson left the team — Wilson recently signed with Sibir. Contracts also expired for Sheldon Rempal and Pyotr Khokhryakov, while Matvei Babenko was traded to Sochi in exchange for Ilya Fedotov.
Salavat also acquired Dean Stewart from Vityaz and signed Jack Rodewald, who had a decent showing with Admiral.
That’s about it for now — which makes it hard to call Salavat Yulaev an active player on the offseason market at this point.
