Gagarin Cup Final 2013 • Dynamo Moscow vs. Traktor Chelyabinsk

[od71]

Traktor deserved the cup as much. So many chances to score. Their guys are low on finishing.

True, they hit four posts in the second period.

 

[Mathradio]

When do the free agency period start?

 

[vorky]

When do the free agency period start?

may 1

 

[malkinfan]

Congrats, Dynamo. Traktor is a most entertaining team to watch now. They play beautiful skilled hockey, I love it. Hope they will win next time. Crazy games. Definitely MUCH more fun to watch than NHL playoff final last year.
Disagree about Kuznetsov, he played well, created a lot of scoring chances for partners. In the 1st period he stole the puck from Gorovikov and forced them to take penalty and Traktor scored a PP goal.
Traktor has to mature like Dynamo, AkBars. It takes time to pay dues. It's not their turn now (the team is too young), but time will come.
I love to watch how Traktor plays, don't blame Dynamo but all their goals are garbage goals: Dynamo is a team of workers, Traktor is a team of creators

Agree with Traktor style, beautiful. Horribly disagree with Kuznetsov. He played poorly - too selfishly. So many times he tried to take the puck end to end through whole team to no avail. Dynamo was feasting on his turnovers. You cannot play that way against the Dynamo defense - you have to utilize your linemates especially when your playing with ultra puck distributor Chistov. Not only that but he could not finish when he did generate chances. He was far from good.
Dynamo scored some garbage goals but had their share of excellent goals, they are a team of precision. Tsvetkov, Soin and Kokraev are Dynamo classics who play precision hockey, excellent passing. Loved Kokarevs goal from Tsvetkov in G3 - excellent perfection. Also Kvapil had some dandys. Dynamo just plays precision, smart hockey. A lot of under rated guys playing there, very well coached.

 

[SoundAndFury]

Horribly disagree with Kuznetsov. He played poorly - too selfishly. So many times he tried to take the puck end to end through whole team to no avail. Dynamo was feasting on his turnovers. You cannot play that way against the Dynamo defense - you have to utilize your linemates especially when your playing with ultra puck distributor Chistov. Not only that but he could not finish when he did generate chances. He was far from good.

Glad at least some people here know how hockey has to be played instead of going "oh he's so good, so talented, he was just unlucky" as the majority do.

Looking into stats a bit deeper it's obvious Kuznetsov wasn't as effective as before this season. His shooting percentage in regular season dropped to 8.5 which is really bad for a player of his caliber (requires to average 4,3 shots per game to have a 30-goal season in the NHL; for pure goal-scorers like Stamkos or, taking example from KHL, Martensson and Mozyakin it's usually 15-20 percent) and it got even worse in the playoffs - 6.1 percent. For people who'll scream that he just had a very bad luck and hit the so many times I remind you that at least one his goal (or even two, maybe) was an empty-netter and 25 games is a darn long period to blame the luck. The story which it really tells is a) chocking - ever so popular in NA but sadly Kuznetsov is not the case; b) low hockey IQ which leads to taking all kinds of bad decisions - and that's more like it.

While the argument can be made that many leaders suffer the dropping shooting percentage in the playoffs - it's the story of players like Mozyakin, Thoresen and Radulov every single year, and it can be easily explained by better competition - but they still manage to be PPG players most of the time. Importance of making the right decision and getting rid of the puck at the right time after attracting the attention of defensemen becomes even bigger. Here's career goal:assist ratio of Radulov, Thoresen, Mozyakin and Kuznetsov during the regular season and playoffs:

Radulov: 1:2, 1.24 PPG; 1:3.5, 0.93 PPG
Thoresen 3:4, 1.04 PPG; 1:3, 0.8 PPG
Mozyakin 5:6, 1.19 PPG; 2:3, 0.89 PPG
Kuznetsov* 6:7, 0.81 PPG; 3:2, 0,54 PPG

*- it seemed unfair to include Kuznetsov's rookie season as he was very young and with limited ice time

It tells few things: 1) Kuznetsov's playmaking ability isn't all that great and 2) Kuznetsov has a different tendency than pretty much every other elite KHL forward. Although you may say he's simply a different player we are comparing him to the elite playmaking forward, two-way jack of all trades kinda guy and pure sniper. If Kuznetsov is a different player then only so in a way that he's ineffective one.

Too bad there are no CORSI, zone start times or even giveaway stats in the KHL which would undoubtedly support the argument but all these Kuznetsov's turnovers are reflected by his second worst +/- on the team. Kuznetsov has -5 while Deron Quint, playing against top opposition every night has +7. That's suprising even to me although I have known the obvious fact that Kuznetson is a defensive liability for years.

You may not like statistics but all these different stats make a pretty strong case, don't they? Me and Latgale_Fan were talking about it during Barys series and some Caps fan replied with good old "you are not watching the games". I'd love to see him reply to this one too, with some sort of better argument, maybe.

Oh, and sometimes I remember that pipe dream of some guys about Kuznetsov playing center in the NHL.. What a joke that seems to be now.