The exit of Dynamo Moscow from the KHL playoffs is one of the main sensations of the current Gagarin Cup. First of all, the blue and white lost the series 0-4. Second, the regular season champion lost to Traktor, who only took sixth place in the East. Of course, the Chelyabinsk team is miraculously doing well in this cup spring, this team now sounds stronger than anyone else and plays with incredible courage, but such relegation for Dynamo is a complete and unconditional failure.
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“Traktor” went out to win, we went out to play hockey.” Dynamo’s reaction to elimination from the playoffs
The problems in the playoffs for the blue and white arose in the first round and only got worse in the second. Lackluster match with equal strength, serious positional errors from the defenders, uncertainty from the goalkeepers. The Muscovites won the series with Dynamo Minsk largely thanks to the majority, but this proved catastrophically insufficient for at least a victory in the second round over Traktor. At the same time, the weak points of the blue and white were aggravated to the maximum: goalkeeper Konovalov’s failure (and Motorygin was not impressed), the defenders lost the nickel again and again, and the leaders of the attack were never able to score more in a single match of what Dynamo conceded. At the same time, there are not many questions for Gusev, Wil and company: the main blue and white forwards scored in every game, despite the fact that some of them played with serious injuries. But the depth of attack, which the team seemed to have acquired during the regular season, disappeared in the playoffs and did not help the Dynamo secure its collapsing defense.
Nikita Gusev and Jordan Weal
Photo: Alexander Safonov, “Championship”
In general, Dynamo lacked character and cup-bearing intensity. The regular season, where everything happened calmly and measuredly, the blue and white team went very well, but Dinamo failed in the short stretches of the playoff series, where a lot depends on emotions and spirit. He played, as I already wrote, too academically, and there was no one who could lead Dynamo into a fierce cup battle.
Of course, big questions for Dynamo coach Alexei Kudashov. He is a strong tactician, works very well with young people, confidently leads the team from a long distance, but in the playoffs it is not the first time that his teams are inferior to their opponents, mainly in character, even with a seemingly even game. . I don’t want to categorically label Kudashov as “a coach who is not up to big things,” but the facts are clearly not in his favor.
In seven full seasons with Atlanta, Lokomotiv and Dynamo Moscow, Kudashov never reached at least the third round of the playoffs. Let’s say it was impossible to do this with Atlant, and Lokomotiv found it difficult to fight against the army hegemony in the West, but in Dynamo Kudashov had a great chance to achieve something. But in the first year, his team with Shipachev and Yashkin barely beat Severstal in seven games, only to lose miserably 4-0 to CSKA in the second round. In the second year, Kudashov’s Dynamo, even without Shipachev and Yashkin, but with Weal, Menell and O’Dell, did not even get past the conference quarterfinals, giving Torpedo three consecutive overtimes at the decisive moment: this It is a question. of character. Well, now the team, which did not lose last season’s leaders, reinforced by Gusev, Paquette and Ozhiganov, strove to beat the eighth team of the West in six games, and then failed in the battle with Traktor.
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Three seasons is the period usually given to a coach to achieve results. Kudashov won only two playoff series in three seasons. Well, plus the Continental Cup, which, however, Alexey Nikolaevich himself does not overestimate. In the current Gagarin Cup, for some reason, a very strong and balanced defense of the blue and white failed, goalkeeper Ilya Konovalov played disgustingly, by the way, Kudashov’s protégé. The conclusions here suggest themselves.
At the same time, one must always remember that Dynamo is a specific organization with constantly changing leadership and a complex decision-making vertical. Of course, in such conditions games arise behind the scenes, someone plots intrigues against someone else, but it is unlikely that all this somehow prevented Kudashov from working in the playoffs.
Alexei Kudashov
Photo: Dmitry Golubovich, “Championship”
Should Dynamo fire Kudashov now? On the one hand, he has not shown results in the playoffs for three years, but on the other hand, there are no clear candidates for the replacement. There are no queues at the coach market and the free options already seem to have other priorities: Vorobyov at Ak Bars. Gatiyatulin in “Siberia”. So this is a difficult moment for those who will make a decision about Kudashov’s future at Dynamo: change, just change something or give the coach another chance. In Salavat, by the way, in a similar situation they chose the latter.
Interestingly, at the end of February, after Dynamo’s victory in the regular season, the club’s general director, Sergei Sushko, said that in the near future he would try to please with good news about Kudashov’s future. There was a clear indication of a contract extension, but for a month there was no “good news” and now the blue and white team are on vacation. And Kudashov’s shares are falling rapidly.
