The Disaster that is Omsk

[Latgale_fan]

What happened? Seriously.

I looked through the old "KHL Table" thread where we predicted where the teams will finish the season and generally Omsk wasn't placed as nr.1, but it wasn't much lower than nr.3 in the East too. Many people (including myself) really believed that after the regular season we'll look at "Avangard" as the 2nd best team in the East.

So what the F went wrong and why we're stuck with this clunker this season? Of course Avangard might still make it to the play-offs (they have managed in past from a similar situation), but they have 4 (away) games left, one of them vs SKA and others against Western play-off contenders, and are 5 points behind Traktor (plus Traktor still has 5 games to play).

And even if they manage to clinch the spot, Traktor then is out so.... what happened with Traktor then? You know, the silver medalist...

Is it just the fact that the league becomes more competitive, a coincidence, bad player selection, bad coaching, bad karma..... What do you think?

It's obvious that this year big budget teams have had it tougher. I mean, CSKA could still end up playing SKA in the first round, and Traktor is still in the play-off race (same as Lokomotiv)... while Salavat Yulaev in the current form, regardless if they have home ice advantage over Torpedo or not... I can't see them getting past Torpedo in play-offs, no way. But still. Omsk hasn't simply underachieved. They are trailing a team made from scratch 4 POINTS with only 4 games left.

Seriously, what happened?

Click to read more...

 

[seeep]

Petri Matikainen has happened

 

[SoundAndFury]

Talked about it not that long ago:

It's no mystery, their opening night roster just wasn't all that good, their goaltending was a weak spot all year long, team struggled and at the end of the day here's what happened.

This is a third new goalie they're getting so it's not like they just sat there and waited. If Garon had been adequate Avangard would have probably made the playoffs.

Sure it is somebody's fault, Avangard's decision makers miscalculated how good (bad) this team is going to be. It seems like they really wanted to sign Kostitsyn after he's played great for them during the lockout, they sacrificed defense for it and it bit them in the ass big time. Also Potulny got injured and that left Avangard with Kvasha as their second line center on many nights what is obviously a tragedy waiting to happen.

Furthermore, it's not all about money. Players like Belov and Ramo were one of a kind in the KHL and no matter who do you bring to replace them there's going to be a drop off. Even if Lassila had been the right player to bring in in the summer (at the time I thought he was and obviously so did Avangard's management, there's no one to blame in situation like that) he still would have been no Kari Ramo.

This roster just had too many washed up dead beats who were counted on to be good by Avangard's brass.

What happened to Traktor is even more obvious, they got rid of half of their good players and brought in bad (cheap) ones to replace them. Decline was bound to happen.

 

[Domenica]

At least we can pinpoint the exact moment Teemu Lassila lost his nerve in Omsk: Sep, 15th in the game against Ak Bars that Avangard lost 0:6 and where he threw his mask across the ice and got a delay of game penalty.

In hindsight, it seemed crazy to have a 22-year-old (Reizvikh) and 18-year-old (Kostin) as back-ups.

The high hopes for Avangard just prove that people see what they want to see. Case in point (the blog post talks about the defensive and goaltending weaknesses and still concludes that they could make it to the second round of the play-offs).

 

[SoundAndFury]

Case in point[/URL] (the blog post talks about the defensive and goaltending weaknesses and still concludes that they could make it to the second round of the play-offs).

That's reasonable though, there was no way of knowing that Lassila won't be able to stop a beach ball. And with a goalie posting at least below league average .915 save percentage they would've gotten into the playoffs without a problem.

Also, I don't think it was so crazy to go with Reizvikh as a backup. He was going to get like 10 easy starts against some crappy teams and it all would've been just fine. And they always had an option to bring somebody else in if he wasn't good enough (Mezin, Masalskis were on the market for ever). It's just that it all went wrong because of Lassila.

No decent centers and joke of a 3rd defensive pair was an obvious problem even before the season started and that's where something should have been done differently.

 

[obskyr]

The interesting part is that if it was the Eastern conference of the last season (without Torpedo and Admiral), they'd still easily advance to the playoffs. It would be a lot like the first KHL season when they barely made the cut. And there'd be a lot less drama too, because no matter how hard your team sucks it's still considered healthy as long as it's good enough to be in the post-season. And for Omsk missing this post-season is a dramatic historical event, cause it has never happened to them before.

 

[ozo]

Hard to disagree about goalie disaster, but I think we have to blame the team's overall defensive effort or the stunning lack of it. The roster was good enough to safely make the playoffs. Yes, maybe it wasn't balanced or whatnot, but this team should of been an offensive juggernaut at least, but here we are...

 

[obskyr]

I think this should be the Omsk general thread.

Owner of an Omsk beer restaurant Oleg Lobov closes the doors of his shop for Avangard head coach MiloÅ¡ Říha. The passionate fan announced that on a message board. It was already confirmed by his restaurant staff. Here's his message

Non-dear Mr. Říha, do not ever visit my restaurant!!!! Nobody is going to serve you there anymore, and if you happen to meet the owner, don't expect to hear anything more polite than <get the **** out>! You're not a coach, you're a product of media hype!!!!!! I can't believe that with a roster like this you could've missed the playoffs!!!!! Loser!!!!

Such is Omsk in Omsk.

 

[Atas2000]

2 words. Bad management.

 

[SoundAndFury]

I think this should be the Omsk general thread.


Such is Omsk in Omsk.

That's kind of a problem, uneducated fans barking at the wrong tree. Or maybe not even the fans. Whoever constructed this team will probably face no responsibility for this failure and will have another go this summer. Meanwhile coaches are being fired in bunches.

 

[obskyr]

That's kind of a problem, uneducated fans barking at the wrong tree. Or maybe not even the fans. Whoever constructed this team will probably face no responsibility for this failure and will have another go this summer. Meanwhile coaches are being fired in bunches.

Their GM was actually fired off his job few months ago. I see your point too though. This thing with scapegoating coaches has been the problem of Russian hockey for way too long, but it's also more complicated than that. Even with the limited pool of head coaches KHL has, you still can replace them. Finding a new GM on the other hand is near impossible, the number of more or less competent managers is smaller than the overall number of KHL clubs.

 

[SoundAndFury]

Their GM was actually fired off his job few months ago. <...> Finding a new GM on the other hand is near impossible, the number of more or less competent managers is smaller than the overall number of KHL clubs.

Oh, that's a nice surprise for a change. Hopefully he was actually the one who constructed this roster and wasn't just told to do one thing or another.

Regarding the number of GMs, it's possible to bring in some foreigner. I wonder why Russian clubs don't do that while foreigner coach doesn't surprise anyone at the slightest.