2016 remake, goalkeeping duel and a chance for Fedorov: what you need to know about the Metallurg Gagarin Cup final — CSKA

In pursuit of Ak Bars

The finals of the current Gagarin Cup will bring together teams that have largely embodied the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) over the past decade.

Metallurg was one of the strongest in the championship in the mid-2010s, after which the era of CSKA dominance began.

Since 2018, the army team has reached the decisive stage of the playoffs four times, having failed to achieve such a result only two years ago.

True, the reason for this was not the loss to a stronger opponent, but the coronavirus pandemic, which forced the leadership of the KHL to interrupt the season.

But if Metallurg once won the trophy twice and, in the event of another success, will repeat the record of Ak Bars, then CSKA was unlucky at key moments.

The track record of Muscovites includes only one victory and three defeats in the final - the worst result in the history of the league.

And if they don't succeed again, they will consolidate their status as the main losers of the tournament.

In turn, the triumph will not only allow CSKA to catch up with Metallurg, SKA and Dynamo in terms of the number of trophies, but also help the West restore parity in the dispute with the East.

At the moment, there are six Gagarin Cups in the asset of local teams, the last of which was brought by Avangard.

At the same time, it is worth noting that since 2014, none of the conferences has been able to take gold for two years in a row.

Thus, the army team has every chance to continue the tradition and slightly tweak their personal statistics.

Hope for revenge

It is all the more remarkable that this will have to be done in a confrontation with an opponent who had already bypassed CSKA in the Gagarin Cup final.

In 2016, the army team proceeded almost without resistance to the final stage of the playoffs, defeating Slovan, Torpedo and SKA with a total score of 12:1.

Dmitry Kvartalnov had a powerful squad, including former and future Enkhael players Alexander Radulov, Nikita Zaitsev, Roman Lyubimov and Ilya Sorokin, but met a worthy competitor in Metallurg.

Magnitogorsk also had a number of stellar performers in its cage, including Sergei Mozyakin, Alexander Semin and Danis Zaripov, and approached the final in the status of the championship's most scoring team.

The series has been very tense.

Three matches ended in overtime at once, and it took all seven scheduled meetings to determine the champion.

Initially, CSKA was in the lead, but two failures in a row put him in a difficult position.

Wards of Kvartalnov were one step away from failure, in the sixth game they nevertheless turned out to be stronger in extra time, but they were not enough for more.

On their ice, they were beaten with a score of 1:3, and Evgeny Timkin recorded two of the three goals of the guests in his asset.

It is noteworthy that these goals were the only ones for him during the playoffs.

Another accurate shot was made by Canadian defender Chris Lee.

Rivalry between Vorobyov and Fedorov

That tournament became a landmark, because for the first time in the history of the KHL, a team led by a debutant coach won it.

Before the 2015/16 season, Ilya Vorobyov managed to work as an assistant in Yaroslavl Lokomotiv and Frankfurt Leuven, but he had not yet held the position of chief.

The pressure was added by the fact that in this post he replaced Mike Keenan himself, who at one time led the New York Rangers to the Stanley Cup, and the Magnitka to the first Gagarin Cup.

But the young specialist did not lose face and immediately achieved success.

We had to wait a long six years before the team again reached the final of the playoffs under the leadership of a young mentor who had not worked at a high level for a single full season.

Until now, Sergei Fedorov has already managed to try himself as a general manager, and in 2021 he joined the coaching staff of the Russian national team, but he had no experience at the club level.

Perhaps it was precisely with this that the not-so-smooth performance of the army team during the regular season was connected.

In 47 meetings, they scored only 63 points and let SKA, Jokerit, Traktor and Metallurg go ahead.

This has already cost them home ice advantage in the Western Conference finals, and now it will force them to play the first two matches of the series against Magnitka away.

But if in 2016 this did not prevent Vorobyov, then the team under the leadership of the ex-forward of Detroit may well not stop either.

Among other things, in the playoffs, CSKA under the leadership of Fedorov appeared in a slightly different light: first he demonstrated incredible self-confidence and won the first nine matches, and then proved that he was able to remain calm in the most difficult situations.

Yielding to teammates from St. Petersburg in the series, the Muscovites did not break down, but had an almost perfect two final meetings and snatched a ticket to the next round.

And although the newly-minted mentor has not yet managed to transform the team's game (in this regard, the army team still resembles themselves from the time of cooperation with Igor Nikitin), in terms of psychology, he noticeably transformed the red-blues and managed to liberate the leaders.

The attacking power of Metallurg and impenetrable Fedotov

But it is difficult to say whether this will be enough to win.

Like six years ago, the Magnitogorsk team enter the final as the most productive team in the playoffs.

Then they hit the opponents' gates 64 times in the entire Gagarin Cup, and this time they reached this mark already at the end of the first three rounds.

Surprisingly, the same can be said about Muscovites.

Unless there are slightly fewer goals (50).

And all this is proof that in recent years the teams have not changed their corporate identity.

Another confirmation of this is the number of Metallurg players at the top of the list of top scorers and snipers.

The top 10 in terms of the number of points scored includes six Magnitogorsk players at once, and half of them are in the top five.

Nikolai Goldobin (7 + 8) and Philippe Maillet (6 + 9) share the second line, and the best sniper of the competition Brendan Leipsik (8 + 6) is the fourth.

For comparison, the representation of CSKA in the top ten is limited to Maxim Okulov (5 + 7).

It is noteworthy that in 2016 a similar situation was observed.

Then Magnitogorsk also dominated the productivity ratings, but still had two clear leaders - Sergey Mozyakin and Jan Kovarzh.

Magnitogorsk were the only ones in the league who managed to overcome the bar of 20 points per tournament and finished the scorers' race with a wide margin from their competitors.

The Russian became the best sniper (11 + 14), and the Czech became the assistant (8 + 15).

But if the main trump card of Metallurg is a star attack, then the hope of CSKA is an ultra-reliable goalkeeper.

After returning from Beijing, Ivan Fedotov performs at the highest level and not only does not make mistakes, but is often the main creator of Muscovites' victories.

Suffice it to recall at least the seventh match with SKA, in which he repelled 26 shots on goal and scored the first "cracker" in the current draw.

In terms of the percentage of reflected shots, Fedotov (94%) is second only to Juha Metsola (96.7%) and Vasily Demchenko (95.8%).

True, their results should not be taken into account.

Finn only once went on the ice before leaving Salavat Yulaev, and the Russian, although he successfully replaced Shimon Grubets, was not the main one in Avangard.

He will be opposed by the tournament record holder in the number of matches won, Vasily Koshechkin, who can celebrate his 40th birthday in the sixth match of the confrontation.

And although the veteran does not look that impressive from a statistical point of view, his colossal experience may well become decisive factors in the fight for the trophy.

Nevertheless, he has two victorious Gagarin Cups behind him, Fedotov has never reached the playoff finals either in the KHL or in the MHL.