Athletistic / Hockey Last offseason, Ak Bars became the KHL’s main headliner. It all started with the fact that Dmitry Kvartalnov, who did not find glory in the capital of Tatarstan, was replaced by one of the strongest specialists in the history of the league, a three-time winner of the Gagarin Cup Oleg Znarok. Moreover, the list of “leopards” began to replenish one star after another: Alexander Radulov left abroad, and the Moscow “Dynamo” Kazan flew completely, taking three leaders from them at once – Vadim Shipachyov , Stanislav Galiev and Vyacheslav Voynov. The guide “Ak Bars” in the literal sense of the word panicked after another departure of the “Vanguard” from the Gagarin Cup and invited those people with whom any other result other than the championship will be a failure. However, the start of the season turned out to be far from what Kazan fans saw.

In their very first game of the new season, Oleg Znark’s side ironically couldn’t score a single goal against Dynamo Moscow (0-2). The next game against CSKA seemed to calm everyone down, making them think that the miss with Dynamo was just an unfortunate misunderstanding – the current champion was beaten 5-1 and Alexander Radulov opened the scoring for his goals for the new club. But the next two matches again showed that Oleg Znarok’s work had no end – star-studded “Ak Bars” failed to beat “Admiral” at home in regular time (2:1 OT), then lost to “Dynamo” Minsk (2:3 DE).

The only fear of Kazan fans before the start of the season was the goalkeeper line: the Bilyalov-Miftakhov duo did not look the most reliable in the KHL. However, to their surprise, the problems did not come from there at all: in terms of goals conceded (7), Ak Bars are in the top five teams in the league, but in goals relinquished (9), they are in the top five bottom. Who would have thought that armed with one of the best Russian players in the NHL Radulov, two-time top scorer in the KHL regular season Shipachyov and one of the best forwards of the last championship Galiyev, the “leopards” would begin to experience difficulties in attack?

A separate problem of the citizens of Kazan is the catastrophic majority. “Ak Bars” is the only team in the KHL that has not yet achieved the slightest power play! And this figure shows another, perhaps the main problem of Oleg Znark’s team at the start of the championship – the frankly weak game of Vadim Shipachyov, who is assigned the role of “first violin” in the implementation excess. Vadim is indistinct during face-offs, allows a high percentage of passing faults, frankly works poorly in defense and has already caused several missed goals for his team.

As you can see, a lot of things in the game “Ak Bars” will change if Oleg Znark manages to bring his star center to life. Before the game against Dynamo Minsk, the head coach of Kazan lowered Vadim within three seconds, and in general, Znarok is looking for the best combinations so chaotically that he mixes up the links beyond the recognition of one game to another. In the match with “Admiral” Shipachev, Kagarlitsky and Tarasov came out in the first link, and Voronkov, Safonov and Dynyak were against Minskers. While it all looks overly emotional, if not agony.

Among star rookies, only Radulov holds his level so far – 4 (3+1) points from four games, although before the start of the season there were some concerns about how the former striker from Dallas could work with Znark, with whom they once had a very strong conflict in the Russian national team. As for other high profile acquisitions, we don’t consider Voinov because Vyacheslav is a defender and Ak Bars is doing very well in defense. Galiev only scored two assists, which is also not the ultimate dream. Among last year’s leaders, we should have expected more from Kagarlitsky, who, like Galiev, scored just two assists. But the main problem remains Shipachev, who has so far scored only one scored point, having thrown overtime at the “Admiral” and having a utility indicator of “-2”.

Sure, the strongest teams in the KHL often build their training to approach the playoffs in peak form, however, it seems Ak Bars is a slightly different case today. First of all, newcomers have to get used to it, Znarok has to decide on the composition of the units, but it is unlikely that in Kazan, even taking into account the changes in personnel, someone will expect to be the last KHL team to implement the majority in the first two weeks since the start of the championship. In addition, it is worth paying attention to another indicator: “Ak Bars” is one of the worst teams in the league in terms of shots on goal – only 108 in four matches. This suggests that the team has issues not only with the majority, but also with the creation in principle. The team does not find free zones, does not create chances, acts slowly, and both goals in the match with Minsk “Dynamo” were given up, as they say, “with meat” – in the fight for a penny.

I would like to hope that Kazan will start adding more in the very near future. Otherwise, the team may well start to be rocked by conflicts, and there are plenty of explosive personalities in the club – it’s the difficult character of Znark, and the often unbalanced Radulov, and the very difficult Shipachev. And in general, given the mega-confident game of SKA, the St. Petersburg team definitely needs a worthy competitor in the East. This is required for the entire KHL.

Pavel Novikov, Athletistic