Following the resignation of Anvar Gatiyatulin, Alexey Zavarukhin appeared to be a temporary option for Traktor, who looked completely helpless at the start of the season. The main intrigue at that time seemed to be a question: whether Chelyabinsk I work 10 days before meeting with Avtomobilist, headed by cousin Nikolai Zavarukhin? Chelyabinsk Zavarukhin resisted and at the beginning of his work he achieved resounding success.
Perhaps the main event associated with the brothers in the regular season was a series of promotional videos for the Ural Derby, made in the style of Brother 2. “Avtomobilist” played to the point that in December rumors about the resignation of the coach in chief became evident, after the All-Star Game they returned to normal, but the regular season for Yekaterinburg was not impressive. “Traktor” declared attacking hockey, and periodically it worked, but more often everything gave way to chaos. “Antics and Hollywood can’t help but affect the outcome. There should be no artists from a burned-down theater in the club,” Vladimir Plyushchev directed a philippic to Alexei Zavarukhin, who frequently appeared in the club’s media.
However, very soon everything turned upside down. “Avtomobilist” eliminated from the playoffs, perhaps the most stellar club in the KHL forward selection, “Ak Bars”, and now took two victories from St. Petersburg. “Traktor” first eliminated “Salavat Yulaev”, who was considered the shadow favorite, and is now one step away from overtaking the regular season champions “Dynamo”, and now the prospects of a “final fraternal” in the KHL no longer exist. It is no longer perceived as a joke. How do the Zavarukhins win? Let’s highlight some points.
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Perhaps the main phenomenon of the two teams of the Zavarukhin brothers is simplicity. This is not the kind of simplicity that is expressed in “throw the puck and run” nor the kind of simplicity that is worse than theft. Important: you should not assume that “simplicity” is synonymous with stupidity or primitivism; It is making the most effective decision with the least effort. In this sense, the “Shabanov feint”, which marked Dynamo’s first goal in the third match, is the antithesis of such a game and a rare example of a blunder by two Ural clubs. Both teams play positionally competently and make excellent use of counterattack opportunities, which they often provoke by forcing their opponents into mistakes.
Nikolay Zavarukhin
Photo: Avtomobilist HC
Even after Salavat it was written that Traktor lost in terms of xG, puck possession and other statistical indicators. “Dynamo” also wins by numbers, although in the same first match with a score of 2:4 they did not create anything, except for the chance of the young Chernyshov, who missed into an empty goal. More than once Dinamo could not overcome the formation in the middle zone, which probably existed even in the childhood of the Zavarukhins. The blue and white tactic was reduced to three steps: enter, fail to gain a foothold, repeat. However, he cannot be called a “bus”, especially in the context of yesterday’s match in Yaroslavl.
SKA was cut off from approximately the same “barbed wire”, only in a period of six (the second in the first match) did they attack well positionally, but still did not score. When necessary, Avtomobilist exerts the most powerful pressure – look how Andrei Obidin hung on Arseny Koromyslov! However, if necessary, instead of pressing, there is density in the middle zone – the Yekaterinburg club played excellently in the regular season. “Auto” players for the most part will definitely not organize ridiculous reviews like the one that led to Byvaltsev’s break-even point. If errors occur, Alikin and Fucale manage to clean everything up.
Also: in the playoffs there was a rebirth of the “workhorses” of both clubs. According to protocol, the first link of “Traktor” has long been declared to be the trio Mikhail Kotlyarevsky, Jack Rodwald and Buddy Robinson. In terms of playing time and skill level, they are not the first link, but in terms of energy and compliance with Traktor’s playoff philosophy, they are. If in the series with Salavat Robinson was in the foreground, now it is Kotlyarevsky who scored the winning goal in the third match, who took advantage of his excellent speed.
Avtomobilist’s first line according to the protocol included Stepan Khripunov, a fast, hard-working and enterprising forward who had difficulty taking advantage of the opportunities created in his career, as well as Andrei Obidin, a universal player in terms of position on the ice who can score power. “Notes.” “Both play an important role in the best team in the league, both scored the most important goal in the second game in St. Petersburg and their center Alexey Byvaltsev scored two goals from a foul.
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Selflessness and blocked shots were a big part of Avtomobilist’s victory in the first round. Chelyabinsk Zavarukhin, unlike his brother, talks less about dedication at press conferences, but at the same time, “Traktor” blocks no less, if not more, shots. In three games of the series against Dynamo, the Chelyabinsk team already has 86 blocked shots! “Auto” gets under the puck less in the second round, but with his positional play he pushes SKA into awkward shooting positions.
Alexey Zavarukhin
Photo: Alexander Fedorov, foto.khl.ru
Well, the most important thing about the victory of both teams is the atmosphere in the locker room. Alexey Potapov said in one of the programs that when a team wins, the atmosphere is good everywhere; However, the post-match videos of the two Ural clubs simply burn with energy. Chelyabinsk’s MVP in this regard is Zach Fucale. The 2015 MFM champion not only carries his team in the game, but also drives the games in the locker room. At the end of the third match, there was an indicative moment when defender Ilya Nikolaev blocked a shot at point-blank range and fell: the goalkeeper immediately after the break thanked the defender and shook him, and his teammates helped him up.
“Avtomobilist” had a reputation for being a team with eternal weakness within the team, but in the playoffs this also changes. Little has been said about this, but with a high degree of probability this (already middle-aged) core will not survive next year: the contracts of almost all the forwards in the top 9 are expiring. In years past, one would have thought this would be another reason to hang up one’s legs, but Sergei Shirokov’s fiery speech after the first match tells a different story. The super veteran received the title of captain immediately after his transfer to Yekaterinburg, he played an important role in getting rid of the St. Petersburg “forward” and now again leads the veterans.
In the regular season there was a lot of talk about offensive hockey, the green vector and other beautiful things. Perhaps everyone has fallen under his spell and in the playoffs teams win with a peasant ideology in every sense of the word. Because? As almost every coach in the league says: “It’s the playoffs.”
