Severstal and Andrei Kozyrev success with young players

[Jersey Fan 12]

In looking at the Severstal lineup it seems that there are several young (under 23) players - either signed from other clubs or developed locally - that are having success this year.

Is this just a matter of opportunity or is it attributable to Kozyrev and his staff and the system in Cherepovets?

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[Zine]

Severstal always has a small budget so they must rely on younger and/or unheralded players.
But their success skyrocketed under Razin the last few seasons. This year I expected Severstal to return to unimportance with Razin gone, but Kozyrev is also doing very well.
It's probably a little bit of everything.

 

[Caser]

Should also be noted that Kozyrev was Larionov's tactician last season. I kind of hope that there is a trend for coaches to trust younger players more with the emergence of guys like Larionov, Razin, Kozyrev, Tambiev, Kokorev etc.

 

[Alkamfell]

Severstal for a long period of time struggles to survive in KHL with their limited budget. To make it worse KHL increased the salary floor starting this season. To make it Severstal needed to sell some of their leaders. The head coach Razin who had decent results with Severstal in the last couple of years decided that this is a good time to move to a more ambitious team. Without any other options Severstal decided to focus on growing young talents for future selling.

They took Kozyrev from Torpedo where he was an assistant coach in Larionov team. Torpedo was a hot topic in KHL last season and many attributed this success to Kozyrev who was responsible for tactics in the team. Before that Kozyrev worked in MHL and VHL so he had a bunch of experience working with young players before coming to Severstal.

The important thing to note is that Severstal doesn't have a GM position in the club so GMs responsiblities are distributed among other staff including coaches. So Kozyrev has a lot of influence on decisions regarding trades. That basically means that if budget allows it he can get any player he wants. Severstal made a bunch of trades and not only they got the money they needed to make the salary floor they also got some promising talents. And these were players that Kozyrev was personally interested in.

The playing style changed a lot. More risky and aggressive with a focus on attack. Severstal is a second most scoring team this season after Spartak. Their playing is also less physically intensive at the same time. Severstal this season has games with just one hit (maybe there are games with no hits at all but I'm not sure). Players that were leaders during the Razin reign like Vovchenko, Guslistov and Petunin don't do well in Kozyrev team. Petunin was traded, Guslistov was moved to VHL, Vovchenko struggles getting points. On the other hand newcomers and yongsters like Ilyin look very good. Severstal and Kozyrev are praised a lot by sports media and experts in Russia.

Severstal also tries to make Kozyrev style a system. Their MHL team Almaz tries to play similar style and looks pretty good.

 

[eal]

Severstal are always worth watching, quite an entertaining style of play.