The victory of CSKA, the abolition of the regular season, scandals. What do you remember about the KHL season?

The KHL championship ended on Saturday. In the final series of the Gagarin Cup, CSKA defeated Metallurg 4:3.

CSKA became the second team to win back in the final with a score of 1:3. In 2012, Dynamo Moscow succeeded in a series with Avangard.

"CSKA" won the national championship for the 36th time, and the Gagarin Cup for the second time. In 2022, they were led to victory by Sergey Fedorov, who was appointed HEAD coach of the team last summer, and before that he had no coaching experience.

Previously, only Canadian Mike Keenan (Metallurg, 2014) won the Gagarin Cup in his debut season in the KHL, but before that he worked as a head coach in the NHL for 20 seasons and twice led the Canadian team to victory in the CANADA Cup (1987, 1991).

CSKA is the most stable club in the KHL in recent years. The Army Men have played in the last four finals and won two of them.

CSKA defeated Metallurg and won the Gagarin Cup for the second time in history

Early end of the regular season

After the new year, several KHL teams went into quarantine due to the large number of people infected with the CORONAVIRUS. On January 11, the league held a meeting with club leaders. None of them spoke in favor of suspending the season, and KHL President Alexei Morozov announced the continuation of the championship.

However, the very next day, the KHL announced a pause "due to the rapid growth in the number of cases." At the same time, both all other leading leagues in the world and the rest of the leagues in RUSSIA (Higher and Youth) continued to play.

RBC sources linked the decision to suspend the season and cancel the KHL All-Star Game with the interests of the national team, which, thanks to this, received additional days to prepare for the Olympics.

The KHL promised to end the regular season. The league's website wrote that "under the conditions of an unequal number of matches played and a different team calendar for the season, the sports principle would be violated." “The League has decided to stop at the full completion of the regular season,” the KHL specified. But in the end, in early February, the early completion of the championship was announced.

The places of the teams according to the results of the regular season were distributed according to the percentage of points scored.

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Departure of Jokerit and Dynamo Riga

For the first time, Jokerit refused to play in the KHL playoffs in 2020 due to the coronavirus. But then the league ended up canceling the season entirely. In 2022, the Finns withdrew from the championship right before the start of the Gagarin Cup and left Spartak without an opponent. Both clubs explained the decision to leave the KHL by the Russian military operation in Ukraine.

Jokerit was credited with four technical defeats, and Muscovites advanced to the second round of the playoffs for the first time since 2010.

A little later, Jokerit announced his departure from the KHL. Dynamo Riga also left the league.

Now there are three foreign clubs left in the KHL - Dynamo (MINSK), Barys (Nur-Sultan) and Kunlun (Beijing, the team played the previous two seasons in Mytishchi).

it is planned that 22 clubs will play in the next championship. This is the lowest figure in the history of the KHL.

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Match in emergency

At the beginning of the year, mass protests began in Kazakhstan. A state of emergency was introduced in the capital Nur-Sultan, and a match between Barys and Metallurg was scheduled for January 5 in the city.

KHL regulations prohibit playing in regions where a curfew has been declared or a state of emergency has been introduced. However, the league decided to play the match. The only limitation is the lack of spectators.

Metallurg stated that "the club, relying on the KHL regulations, turned to the league leadership with a proposal to reschedule the match to another date that would suit all interested parties." “However, the KHL gave the order to still hold the match,” the message said.

At the same time, the KHL postponed another match of Barys, which came at the time of the state of emergency: the meeting between Barys and Ak Bars was held on January 17 not in Nur-Sultan, but in Kazan.

Tretiak announced the tactical victory of CSKA coach Fedorov in the KHL final

Postponement of Ipa suspension

Another scandal occurred in the KHL in November. The Canadian-born forward of Kunlun and the Chinese national team, Brandon Yip, received a two-match suspension and a fine after the match with Avangard (the judges did not notice any violations during the game itself).

Ip was supposed to miss the matches with Amur and Avangard (November 15 and 17), but the suspension date was postponed until November 18.

As a reason, the KHL stated the visit of representatives of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), who, at the matches on November 15 and 17, were supposed to assess the compliance of the Chinese team (assembled at the Kunlun base) with the level of the Olympics and decide on its admission to the Games in Beijing.

Forward CSKA Popov at 41 was recognized as the most valuable player in the playoffs of the KHL

Rotenberg - head coach of SKA

Roman Rotenberg replaced Valery Bragin as head coach of SKA on 4 January. The uniqueness of the situation is that the KHL club was headed by a person who had not previously played at a professional level and had no independent coaching experience, with the exception of leading the team during several matches in the 2020/21 season, when Bragin was ill with coronavirus.

Rotenberg holds four more positions in SKA: Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors, Vice President, General DIRECTOR and Head of Staff.

In the regular season, SKA under the leadership of Rotenberg won three out of four matches. In the playoffs, the club defeated Dynamo Minsk and Spartak (4:0 and 4:1), and lost to CSKA in the semifinals (3:4).

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Shipachev is again the top scorer

For the third season in a row, Dynamo striker Vadim Shipachev became the top scorer of the KHL regular season. In 48 games, he scored 24 goals and made 43 assists. Total - 67 points.

The closest pursuer Andrei Kuzmenko from SKA has only 53 (20 + 33) points.

Shipachev and Fatkulina reacted to the choice of their flag bearers at the Olympics Olympics 2022