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Avtomobilist’s Frenchman Stephane Da Costa tells KHL.ru about his current season, last year’s turbulences, and his play with one of the top all-time KHL players – Alexander Radulov.

In this interview with KHL.ru, Dmitry Shikin summed up his period in Switzerland, and talks about the upcoming campaign with Vityaz.

Altybarmakyan spent the last two years overseas, where he tried his way into the Chicago lineup from the farm club. In the summer, the forward returned to the KHL and signed a contract with his former club, HC Sochi. In this interview with KHL.ru, Andrei talked about why he decided to return to the KHL, analyzed the life and hockey experience gained in North America, and gave valuable advice to those who are going to visit Sochi.

In Nizhny Novgorod, the team’ boards and new head coach Igor Larionov talked about the new season and the preparation for the upcoming 2022-2023 campaign.

In this KHL.ru interview, Barys and Team Slovakia’s forward Tomas Jurco talked about his move to the KHL, Pavel Datsyuk, his fame on YouTube, the necessary break in his career, and his expectations for the Beijing Olympics.

In this KHL.ru interview, Traktor’s forward Lukas Sedlak talks about the upcoming Beijing Olympic Games, his team’s goals for the current season, and his free time in Chelyabinsk.

In this KHL.ru interview, Team China’s head coach Ivano Zanatta talks about the preparation to the Olympic Games, his season with Kunlun, the Chinese players’ prospects, and his goals toward Beijing 2022.

Brampton, Ontario native Tyler Graovac arrived to Minsk by his own description “like a kid in a candy shop.” But make no mistake—Dinamo head coach Craig Woodcroft’s approach is far from sugarcoated. The all-business bench boss does not conceal his desire to dominate, a quality that Graovac admires in his new leader.

Four seasons ago, I met a team called Kunlun Red Star in the basement of Balashikha Arena. It was my first-ever assignment in hockey, and my memory of that night is more vivid than of hundreds more that followed. Among the names on my agenda was Brandon Yip, a 2004 Colorado Avalanche draft pick who found himself at the helm of a fledgling hockey club in Shanghai. Years of being pushed around by traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange could never have prepared me for this confrontation with my childhood dream of hockey reporting.

Vityaz Podolsk forward Daniel Audette was told that his game was well-suited to Europe. A top-five producer on the Western Conference’s last place team, he has lived up to expectations in spite of the headwinds facing his squad. A second-generation professional hockey player, Audette admits that he once dreamt of being a goaltender, a position he now terrorizes as one of the KHL’s top point snipers. During his father’s tenure with the Montreal Canadiens, he spent time in close proximity to one of the best netminders in hockey history.

Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod winger Kenny Agostino is one of the KHL’s leading goal scorers, but he admits that it is not an achievement secured alone. Aside from high-octane linemates Damir Zhafyarov and Andy Miele—two impressive flanks for a debut season—there is one other contributor that deserves honorable mention, and that is Agostino’s sister.

Helsinki and Saint Petersburg have more in common than their fanbases would like to admit—blustery coastlines on the Baltic, historic connections with Peter the Great, and at one time, even club ownership. In the old adage, “keep your friends close but your enemies closer,” Jokerit and SKA have succeeded on geographic and managerial grounds—but now they share one more legacy, perhaps to Helsinki fans’ chagrin. It is none other than Mikko Lehtonen, a lethal two-way defenseman who will soon suit-up for the Army Men.

Averaging over a point per game, Salavat Yulaev forward Markus Granlund has maintained momentum after a breakout debut season. Tasked with filling the shoes of Linus Omark—a longtime leader and staple on Ufa’s top line—Granlund entered the turbulent 2020-21 KHL season with a heavy set of expectations. Rising to past glories without Omark aside, the team would be forced to deal with extended departures, curtailed preseason preparations and much more.

SKA’s forward told KHL.ru about practicing with Nikita Gusev and Nikita Kucherov, playing in a new position, and expectations from his second WJC.

There is making an entrance, and then there is Philippe Maillet—a contender for the league scoring race behind perennial powerhouse Vadim Shipachyov just one month into his KHL debut. Metallurg’s new Canadian center has a track record of impressive production that spans twelve time zones, averaging well over a point per game in his first twelve Russian starts.

Sochi newcomer Magnus Hellberg is among the toughest KHL goaltenders to score on, but snipers have an extra incentive to beware. If you happen to catch the Swede’s neck, you will have more than just a 6’6 World Champion to contend with later. You may also need to answer to his mother—a force who used to reprimand the street hockey rascals that made her five-year-old future NHLer cry.

Torpedo bench boss Dave Nemirovsky had over 200 international games on VHS and beta growing up, a masterclass in Red Machine style and predominance. While his parents and brother were born in the USSR, the 1994 Florida Panthers draft pick had never stepped foot on Russian soil until he moved his career to the Russian Superleague in 2001. It was a heritage that always fascinated the future KHL coach, and one that comes alive each time his roster touches the ice.

The first week’s best defenseman told KHL.ru about Sochi’s start, differences between Vitolins and Hartley, studying in America, and Olympics qualifications.

It’s one thing to meet your childhood idol—the player whose jerseys and cards filled the drawers of your room, and whose inspired actions you memorized, perhaps even repeated in your dreams. But to cover for your idol in the defensive zone is something else entirely, an opportunity that left SKA veteran forward Anton Burdasov in shock when it arrived.

For some members of the hockey community, coaching is an inevitable destiny—a calling that runs through their veins perhaps even before a playing career has concluded. Metal-lurg Magnitogorsk bench boss Ilya Vorobyov is one such example, the son of a longtime KHL and National Team coach who absorbed his father’s training principles long before he ruled a bench of his own.

There is a legend inside of the Tretiak family that goes something like this.

“Are you nervous, or is something going on with your family?”

Bobsled’s loss was hockey’s gain.

Dr. Craig Slaunwhite contemplated a unique career prior to his emergence in the field of peak athletic performance—competitive bobsledding, a seamless fit for the former college decathlete. His fast track to Cool Runnings came to a halt when a coaching offer from the Florida Panthers arrived. It is now the tease of a path not taken—one that crosses the NHL and NBA performance guru’s mind from time to time

Dinamo Minsk experienced a cultural overhaul in the 2020-2021 season, and not even a pandemic would derail the club’s efforts toward expansion. Under head coach Craig Woodcroft, a spotlight was shone on young Belarusian talents brought home from abroad, ballasted by imports with some serious KHL mileage. Defenseman Vladislav Yeryomenko, 22, was one such local youngster who witnessed the drastic change in fortune, which catapulted Minsk from one of their worst showings to playoff position in a matter of one season.

In late May, Denmark delivered its first-ever victory over Sweden at the IIHF World Championship. It was a milestone almost exclusively achieved by Jokerit forward Nicklas Jensen, who registered a hat trick and an assist to seal the upset. His breathtaking performance impressed even the toughest of coaches, a Toronto-born import to Herning in the 1990s. His name is Dan Jensen, but he’s better known as dad.

Traktor’s newly-signed forward told KHL.ru about his preseason, his move to Chelyabinsk, and his family.

The city of Medicine Hat, Alberta has a population of 63,000, and a Kazakh-Canadian export list of 2. First teamed up at the age of five, Curtis Valk and Darren Dietz reunited on the ice in the most unlikely of destinations: Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan—nearly 9,000 kilometers from their childhood home.

Sergei Zubov is my favorite variety of Russian star, forged in the white heat of CSKA training camps and tested under the fierce gaze of hockey’s toughest coaches, from Viktor Tikhonov to “Iron Mike” Keenan. Despite back-breaking pressure and unbending leadership, the Hall of Fame defenseman’s creativity was irrepressible, an innate brilliance that always found an outlet—even in the hottest of furnaces.

While the “Siberian Snipers” stands among the best team names in professional hockey, Dmitry Ovchinnikov could own the title himself. The eighteen-year-old forward from Chita, Zabaykalsky Krai—a city nestled between Russia’s Mongolian and Chinese borders—averaged over a point per game this season, his arresting speed and inch-perfect shot just two weapons in a well-rounded arsenal. With production numbers that put him in the realm of Nikita Gusev, Alexander Barabanov and Nikita Kucherov in their junior years, the youngster would have every right to brag—but he did not take the opportunity. Novosibirsk narrowly missed a shot at postseason play, a disappointment that Ovchinnikov puts on his own shoulders.

Darren Dietz is one of the most dedicated ambassadors Kazakhstan could have ever asked for, whether he’s selling the country’s ecological diversity or leading a Cinderella start for the National Team at Worlds. The twenty-seven-year-old captain of Barys Nur-Sultan calls his second passport a gift for which he is extremely proud, and shared a snippet of his adventures across the world’s largest landlocked country.

Here’s the pitch: both Nick and Shelby are hockey players, the latter in early talks to represent the new women’s team in Chelyabinsk, which applied to join the WHL for the 2021-22 season.

Kirill Marchenko is an artist, but he refuses a likening to Picasso. He’s the mastermind behind the KHL’s best goal of the Western Conference Finals, but his own stores of creativity took the youngster by surprise. The only place SKA Saint Petersburg’s talented winger seems to accept comparisons is on the pitch—and although he claims to lack soccer talent, he selects the Bun-desliga’s leading hat trick scorer as his closest player comparable.

In the modified words of Drake—he started from the bottom of the Eastern Conference, and now he’s here.

When Robert Rooba signed with Severstal Cherepovets this week, he became the first Estonian player in the history of the KHL. The twenty-seven-year-old forward hopes that his hard-fought milestone will light the runway for future generations of hockey talent.

Sergey Kalinin won World Juniors, Worlds, the Gagarin Cup and Olympic Gold before the age of 30. He has gone to the KHL Finals with both teams participating in this year’s clash, a tidbit he claims to have forgotten until our catchup over the weekend. The seasoned veteran and NHL alum walked into the Traktor Chelyabinsk locker room this summer as captain, and posted one of his best-ever performances on the Eastern Conference Cinderella squad. Traktor climbed from bottom-feeder to playoff contender, a metamorphosis Kalinin described as “perestroika” before the 2020-2021 campaign even began.

Jokerit Helsinki and Lokomotiv Yaroslavl have met 20 times in the past two seasons. In spring of last year, the Jokers reigned supreme over Mike Pelino’s squad—but COVID-19 derailed their playoff hopes. The Railway Men exacted their revenge this March with a decisive first-round victory, including two shutouts for chart-topping netminder Eddie Pasquale. According to Jokerit head coach Lauri Marjamäki, the results yielded no room for interpretation.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
Though written over one hundred years ago, Charles Dickens’ immortal words accurately summarize the about-face that Dinamo Minsk has recently sustained—from their worst-ever performance in franchise history to their first playoff appearance in years. Against the backdrop of sizable personnel changes and a global pandemic, head coach Craig Woodcroft oversaw Dinamo’s transformation from bottom-feeder to playoff contender. With the assistance of Mikhail Grabovski and Pavel Perepekhin, the troika lured a sizable contingent of promising Belarusian youngsters away from North America, rounding out the locker room with battle-tested KHL imports including Rob Klinkhammer and Brandon Kozun. The team finished the regular season seventh in the West, falling to powerhouse SKA Saint Petersburg in the first round of the playoffs. Their upgrade in the standings was predicated on a seismic overhaul of team culture.

Red Army goaltender Lars Johansson is a regular at the top of the leaderboard. His consistency was often overshadowed by high-profile prospect Ilya Sorokin, but with the latter’s departure for North America, Johansson has continued to backstop CSKA to success. If Red Army should repeat this season without Sorokin between the pipes, the Swedish netminder will receive a spotlight he has long deserved—although humbly never sought.