Part 4
#20 Neftekhimik. Got worse
One more team that changes a whole lot of things every year just to achieve very much the same result every year. Yezhov and Makarov will be unspectacular yet decent duo in goal but on defense quality players (Kinrade, Lyamin, Berezin) were replaced with gambles: Piganovich who hasn't played for a year and was rolling downhill fast years before, Graborenko who literally hasn't ever played a full pro season before and Sharipzyanov who tries to escape the ECHL. Offensively things got worse as well, keeping Sexton for at least one more year was great success and new additions - Hanzl and Rau - form a pretty scary 1st line. However, this is where it ends, this team doesn't seem to have any secondary scoring whatsoever. Rough season ahead.
#21 Avtomobilist. Got a lot better
Again, a lot of changes but in Avto's case you can understand them - they had a lot of parts that needed fixing. They got rid off a lot of underachieving players and looking at those who left it's hard to call any of them a loss. Koukal, Andersen and Kivisto are good players but they didn't excel in too big of a roles for them. Additions are mostly very solid. Firstly, Jakub Kovar is back in net after Ustinsky blew his chance. Tryamkin, Lyamin, Misharin and Denis Bodrov are additions on defense and this looks very strong, looking at their 8 defensemen group it is easily top-5 in the conference. Francis Pare, Ilya Krikunov and Taylor Beck are big additions upfront. The only fault of this team is that Torchenyuk and Ticar as top 2 centers are not a tragedy but far from a strength either. Having said that, this team will be back to playoffs.
#22 Amur. Got worse
Juha Metsola and the band of merry men. No Artyom Zub. No Tomas Zohorna either. Really no bright spots on this team this year, Kvapil is great addition but he is alone. Just no top-end talent, this roster doesn't have many goals in them at all. Bogdan Potekhin and Alex Frolov will have to pop like 15 goals each for this team to not be out of it by New Year. Which, I feel it's safe to say, they aren't capable.
#23 Severstal. Got better
No huge turnover here. Severstal have to be happy they kept all the key players, their youngsters will take another step forward and adding Holik plus Stransky give them one more scoring line. Maybe they could improve on defense but overall, definitely a step forward for this team, one of the dark horses this season.
Edit: I guess Kovar for Hudacek switch in goal has to be mentioned but I don't think it impacts the strength of the team much, just a different name in goal.
#25 Yugra. Stayed the same
Few useful players left, few useful players arrived. Meh team, meh summer, meh roster, no fireworks here. ~65 points at the end of the season if Proskuryakov doesn't brake mentally.
#26 Spartak. Got slightly better
Now this is the team which doesn't belong here, below Yugra. Lets see what a new coach does with this team because it has potential, I'm really a fan of Radil-Stoa-Leschenko line and those guys all stayed for one more year so that's great. The losses are Gilroy and Dyblenko but they were replaced quite adequately with Ville Lajunen and glut of young Ds (Kulik, Yudin, Sinitsyn). Ben Maxwell give them a solid 2nd line center they needed and Stanislav Chistov might also still be of some use. This team will still have to fight very hard for the playoff spot but they really don't belong 30 points off it.
#27 Lada. Got worse
Genoway and Ashton are good additions. Other guys are "best we can get" additions. Roster that wasn't very good last year bled some more with 3 top 6 forwards leaving. Taylor Aronson, who wasn't bad in my opinion, left to the DEL as well. It really got from bad to worse. Again, just really hard to see how can this team achieve any kind of success.
#28 Dinamo Riga. Got better
Elephant in the room is Lauris Darzins is still unsigned. If he doesn't sign at all it will be a massive hit. Also this team desperately needs at least a quality center. The more the better but at least one would do wonders as the current situation (or last year's situation, for that matter) is ugly. On the bright side, none of the players worth mentioning left (again, Darzins being a question mark) and depth on the wings is terrific with Lessio, Kristo and McMillan signed. So this team still has a lot of holes and question marks but it doesn't look as bad as last year and, possibly, if they somehow manage to add a few guys, it will actually be ok. Still no match for a team like Severstal though which just has to feel bad.
That is it, nice if some of you found it informative and worth reading, thanks for all those who did read or discuss this and special thanks for Atas for having resiliency to do so.