Former director of Chelyabinsk “Tractors” Andrey Balandin explained which teams impressed him in the current regular season of the Fonbet Championship KHL .
— Ak Bars traditionally performs well, at its level. Everything is going well for Lada in the first season after returning to the KHL. There are no super players on the roster, but the team fights for every game. Sergei Shumakov scored a lot of points in the last few games and finally found his team.
The season opener is Spartak under the leadership of Alexey Zhamnov. It’s been a long time since this team was at the top of the standings and played very effective hockey. Zhamnov is an ambitious coach and Spartak has become one of the favorites this season. In Chelyabinsk we still hope that Traktor will show results this season.
I was very disappointed with Metallurg in the Traktor games – it was unclear what the players were doing. Although Andrei Razin wants to prove this season that it was not in vain that he was entrusted with such a team. CSKA is disappointing, Avtomobilist has problems. “Vityaz” could have played more interestingly. Last season there was a lot of talk about what a good coach Leonid Tambiev is, but this year the “Admiral” was blown away. Barys is playing poorly, even though the team has some good foreigners.
However, I think we cannot ignore CSKA and SKA – they will catch up. The teams work according to their own system and get in shape. They will reach the playoffs and it will not be easy for their opponents,” Balandin said, as quoted by RB Sport.
The top three in the KHL Western Conference are Dynamo Moscow (44 points), Spartak (43) and Lokomotiv (38). In the East, Lada (41) leads the ranking, Metallurg is second (40) and Avangard is third (39).
Watch live broadcasts of Fonbet matches of the KHL Championship on the channels of the Match! holding, as well as on the sites matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru.
RB Sport
Source : MatchTV
I’m Emma Smith, a dedicated journalist and avid storyteller. I have been writing for news websites for the past 5 years, reporting on hockey news and delivering in-depth analysis of the sport. In my current role as Author at Athletistic, I write about hockey events from around the world to keep followers up-to-date with what’s happening in the sport.
