KHL Playoffs / Gagarin Cup 2013 • Round of 16

[Vicente]

Nothing happened. Simply nobody loves rich clubs. As for me, I don't hate SKA. Usually I root for teams that financially are not as strong as SKA, hence don't have possibilities to buy star players. The difference between rich and poor teams in the KHL is very distinct.

Me too. That's why I "complained" that it looks again like the top teams (which are off course the rich ones) seem to get all 8 second round spots again.

I like it when outsiders win. The more I can't understand how you guys can say SKA are the rich guys but at the same time say if Kazan, Ufa or Dynamo Moscow win, it's okay. As if they were poor teams...

 

[od71]

Ezhov/Kasutin are doing a superb job so far. I don't see a problem at this position.

Disagree, it's a most weak position in SKA. Shtepanek also looked good till some point. Barulin is far better and experienced goalie than E/K. With all money that SKA throws every year to win the Cup it's ridiculous they decided to save money on goalie.

 

[cska78]

Me too. That's why I "complained" that it looks again like the top teams (which are off course the rich ones) seem to get all 8 second round spots again.

I like it when outsiders win. The more I can't understand how you guys can say SKA are the rich guys but at the same time say if Kazan, Ufa or Dynamo Moscow win, it's okay. As if they were poor teams...

not only ska is rich, they get away with what rich don't, they get the rules bent for their sake, their leadership is directly associated with the leadership of the league and the company, that technically owns the league.

 

[vorky]

Disagree, it's a most weak position in SKA. Shtepanek also looked good till some point. Barulin is far better and experienced goalie than E/K. With all money that SKA throws every year to win the Cup it's ridiculous they decided to save money on goalie.

They wanted to sign Salak from SEL, club was against. So SKA signed Kasutin until 2015, which means no Salak in summer?

 

[od71]

They wanted to sign Salak from SEL, club was against. So SKA signed Kasutin until 2015, which means no Salak in summer?

Sorry, don't know about Salak.

 

[vorky]

not only ska is rich, they get away with what rich don't, they get the rules bent for their sake, their leadership is directly associated with the leadership of the league and the company, that technically owns the league.

ok, any examples?

od71 - ok

 

[SoundAndFury]

Salak is not better than Kasutin. In my opinion if you are looking for the difference maker in goal at the KHL level you have to sign either Barulin or Koshechkin. They are expensive but they are really good year in and year out. Then it's a pretty large group of really solid goalies all over the Europe you are good to go with (Kasutin and Salak are in this group headlined by Ramo, Yeremenko, Janus, Vehanen belongs in this group although few years ago he was a difference maker himself) and then there are all these Ezhovs and Popperles of the world who are just kind of okay.

 

[Shrimper]

Great game from Magnitogorsk today. End the series this weekend!

 

[cska78]

ok, any examples?

od71 - ok

when a player who came back from the AHL all of a sudden is not considered a NHL exception (even though that player was on a contract with an NHL team) is the last thing that comes to mind. And I am sure they are below the financial ceiling as well, right?

 

[vorky]

when a player who came back from the AHL all of a sudden is not considered a NHL exception (even though that player was on a contract with an NHL team) is the last thing that comes to mind. And I am sure they are below the financial ceiling as well, right?

Tarasenko? Who knows, there can be some rule which we dont know about.

You know that one players does not count to salary cap. Is SKA only club which wants this rule? Ask CSKA

I remember Tikhonov-SKA-Severstal case....

 

[Atas2000]

when a player who came back from the AHL all of a sudden is not considered a NHL exception (even though that player was on a contract with an NHL team) is the last thing that comes to mind. And I am sure they are below the financial ceiling as well, right?

How many NHL players played for SKA during the lockout? 3. How many were allowed? 3. What's the point? The conspiracy theories about SKA are nice, but tell me one thing: why haven't they won a cup by now if they have the whole league in their pocket? I think we should stay with the facts. Of course they spend and overspend at will with their sponsorship. Of course they seem to buy away every player available. That doesn't make them the favorites around the hockey folk in the KHL obviously. But then again a CSKA fan shouldn't be throwing stones sitting in the glass house.

 

[Latgale_fan]

For example, Avangard plays against Sibir in PO now. Avangard 's budget is 5 times bigger than budget of Sibir. What are the chances that Sibir will win Ava?

I assume Sibir's budget is around 20 million USD, so you are saying Ava's budget is 100 million USD? I think Ava's budget is only 2 times bigger (and a bit) than Sibir's...

Parity of the league- I think it's also influenced by the fact that rich clubs' owners have become smarter and today aren't just buying names. I mean sure one can mention CSKA and Radulov, but Radulov ain't no fake KHL star and we see that every day, also in play-offs. If you look at SKA there's barely any of the old so called ''NHL stars'' left. Yeah they still have Max but he's like not contributing much these days... and you have guys like Kucheryavenko and Osipov running the show, great buys like Panarin and Varnakov, Chudinov, Tikhonov kid... It's a team that is young and wants to win, unlike in some previous years... There are no fake stars on the team, those few who there are (Dallman, Mortensson, Toresen) have produced year in year out, others are pretty much hungry youngsters + Prucha, Kalinin and Afinogenov.

AK Bars have also been smart this year and it shows. They have Lauris Dārziņš in 4th line (mostly) and he has 3 goals in play-offs, the team is stacked and it shows, the same about CSKA and Dynamo... I'd say at the moment these 4 teams are my main favourites to win.

Also some smaller teams probably lost some potential good foreigners to Lev, Slovan or Donbass. Riga being as example.... The bigger the market for foreigners in KHL, the less valuable material is around. And taking into account that the big clubs collect all the young and perspective Russians, there's nothing much left...

Then again if all the favourites are intact, we're in for a great 2nd round of play-offs.As if all favourites advance, I don't see only Severstal or Lokomotiv as a cup contender. Others have a roster to win and can win any day, 7 teams

 

[Vicente]

Also some smaller teams probably lost some potential good foreigners to Lev, Slovan or Donbass. Riga being as example.... The bigger the market for foreigners in KHL, the less valuable material is around. And taking into account that the big clubs collect all the young and perspective Russians, there's nothing much left...

Then again if all the favourites are intact, we're in for a great 2nd round of play-offs.As if all favourites advance, I don't see only Severstal or Lokomotiv as a cup contender. Others have a roster to win and can win any day, 7 teams

See, and here come VHL+ MHL/MHL B into play. If you don't have money for star players, why not develop your own stars? In football it works aswell with teams like FC Barcelona and Real Madrid (though ironically Real sells all talents to other clubs just to buy them back for 10mio lol).

Certain KHL teams give many young players a chance, some don't.

 

[Jussi]

Salak is not better than Kasutin. In my opinion if you are looking for the difference maker in goal at the KHL level you have to sign either Barulin or Koshechkin. They are expensive but they are really good year in and year out. Then it's a pretty large group of really solid goalies all over the Europe you are good to go with (Kasutin and Salak are in this group headlined by Ramo, Yeremenko, Janus, Vehanen belongs in this group although few years ago he was a difference maker himself) and then there are all these Ezhovs and Popperles of the world who are just kind of okay.

Ässät goalie Antti Raanta will be hot property this off-season. If he doesn't get signed by an NHL club, some KHL club will surely sign him. Tappara goalie Juho Metsola as well. According to papers there's already KHL interest in him.

 

[Latgale_fan]

See, and here come VHL+ MHL/MHL B into play. If you don't have money for star players, why not develop your own stars? In football it works aswell with teams like FC Barcelona and Real Madrid (though ironically Real sells all talents to other clubs just to buy them back for 10mio lol).

Certain KHL teams give many young players a chance, some don't.

I agree but developing players takes time. At the moment Russia and Sweden have about equal amount of young players and/or talents and while in Sweden they are distributed among 12 Elitserien teams, the number is 20 for Russia's KHL clubs. Plus a lot of talent leave to play in CHL. Maybe in future more will stay in Russia, Latvia etc. but at the moment this is a problem. I can understand why some clubs don't play youngsters in KHL... In Latvia like all the cream of the crop aged 1992-1994 plays abroad already (well with few exceptions). Where is Dinamo supposed to come up with talents? Still Indrašis somehow seems to develop into a pretty good player, but will see with the next ones.

 

[Latgale_fan]

Seva 1-0 up, looking good at the moment, in front of home crowd. If not now then when else? It will be very hard in Yaroslavl if they go 3-3 in the series

 

[Vicente]

Seva won 3-1 and face SKA now. Good luck to them.

 

[Jussi]

I agree but developing players takes time. At the moment Russia and Sweden have about equal amount of young players and/or talents and while in Sweden they are distributed among 12 Elitserien teams, the number is 20 for Russia's KHL clubs. Plus a lot of talent leave to play in CHL. Maybe in future more will stay in Russia, Latvia etc. but at the moment this is a problem. I can understand why some clubs don't play youngsters in KHL... In Latvia like all the cream of the crop aged 1992-1994 plays abroad already (well with few exceptions). Where is Dinamo supposed to come up with talents? Still Indrašis somehow seems to develop into a pretty good player, but will see with the next ones.

No, they don't. There's huge difference in registration methods between Sweden and Russia, Russia's actual number is much greater.

 

[SoundAndFury]

Cograts to Severstal, they deserve it, kinda sad it was in expense of Loko though

 

[Latgale_fan]

No, they don't. There's huge difference in registration methods between Sweden and Russia, Russia's actual number is much greater.

Well maybe so but if we look at draft, even discaouning Russian factor, doesn't seem like Russia's getting more love than Swedes, so there's that problem- need better system, coaching etc. which is already being done but realisticall Russia is Russia and Sweden is Sweden, if we talk about why talents might or not might want to leave some country.

 

[Latgale_fan]

Cograts to Severstal, they deserve it, kinda sad it was in expense of Loko though

Kinda sad yeah, but I concur- now that's a team that deserves to go through to the 2nd round past Loko. Plus it's I guess their first time in KHL when they manage to go to round 2 of play-offs and taking into account their previous bad luck in the first round, well deserved.

 

[joe89]

Well maybe so but if we look at draft, even discaouning Russian factor, doesn't seem like Russia's getting more love than Swedes, so there's that problem- need better system, coaching etc. which is already being done but realisticall Russia is Russia and Sweden is Sweden, if we talk about why talents might or not might want to leave some country.

Swedes have become like North Americans in regards to the AHL, that's why there's more drafted Swedes. Taking flyers in the late rounds is easier when you can get them overseas and take control of the development, plus every SEL/SEL2 contract has an NHL clause. Even if the Russians want to come over and play in the NHL, going from KHL > AHL to develop as many teams like isn't a sexy option. There's something like 10 Russians in the AHL and only about a handful of them were drafted out of Russia. There's about 30 Swedes in the AHL now but it was about 50 during the lockout. That's the major difference.

If we look at the World Juniors Russia do about equal to Sweden and that's a better indicator of talent. Hard to say how successful the two programs are in comparison when factoring in amount of registrered players, but both are doing well right now.


Can anyone give something on how Staffan Kronwall played in the playoffs? Numbers look great, too bad they were knocked out.

 

[vorky]

Swedes have become like North Americans in regards to the AHL, that's why there's more drafted Swedes. Taking flyers in the late rounds is easier when you can get them overseas and take control of the development, plus every SEL/SEL2 contract has an NHL clause. Even if the Russians want to come over and play in the NHL, going from KHL > AHL to develop as many teams like isn't a sexy option. There's something like 10 Russians in the AHL and only about a handful of them were drafted out of Russia. There's about 30 Swedes in the AHL now but it was about 50 during the lockout. That's the major difference.

Problem is that KHL/russian clubs dont want to be a feeders of NHL. Swedish/finnish/czech/slovak/suiss clubs have no problem with being feeder of NHL. Their choice. Czech clubs were feeders of NHL in 90ers, exodus to NHL.. look at them now, czech clubs have problems to find money... system of developing collapsed. Why? 1.change of regime and hockey developing model, 2.exodus to NHL for funny money.

I dont know swedish enviroment, but I would not be suprised if something similar happened to Sweden in next 30-50 years.

 

[joe89]

Problem is that KHL/russian clubs dont want to be a feeders of NHL. Swedish/finnish/czech/slovak/suiss clubs have no problem with being feeder of NHL. Their choice. Czech clubs were feeders of NHL in 90ers, exodus to NHL.. look at them now, czech clubs have problems to find money... system of developing collapsed. Why? 1.change of regime and hockey developing model, 2.exodus to NHL for funny money.

I dont know swedish enviroment, but I would not be suprised if something similar happened to Sweden in next 30-50 years.

KHL today pretty much has the same role as the old SEL. There used to be very few Swedes in the AHL, players were staying in the domestic league until they were complete players. I see nothing wrong with that, I would encourage it and it might happen more frequently again with the four year draft rights.

 

[vorky]

KHL today pretty much has the same role as the old SEL. There used to be very few Swedes in the AHL, players were staying in the domestic league until they were complete players. I see nothing wrong with that, I would encourage it and it might happen more frequently again with the four year draft rights.

only different is that Swedish federation signed transfer agreement which is "funny" and russian did not. Btw OT