Until recently, CSKA was inactive this off-season. All the major changes occurred mainly at the beginning: the Army Club, which had recently won two Gagarin Cups in a row, in the first unsuccessful season under the leadership of Sergei Fedorov decided to radically change the vector of development. As a result, in the upcoming championship we will see a completely new CSKA.
The first change affected the head coach: Fedorov’s place, who became a member of the supervisory board, was taken by Ilya Vorobyov, who missed the previous season after leaving Metallurg, and his staff included Yuri Babenko, who moved from Ak Bars, as well as Klemen Mohorich, who handed over the MVP of the last league playoffs to Ilya Nabokov.
Until recently, the only major acquisition of the Moscow club was the exchange of Ivan Drozdov from Salavat Yulaev, for whom the military team gave the Ufa team several young players. There were much more notable departures: many of the team leaders who formed the core of the champion – Grigorenko, Plotnikov, Slepyshev, Svetlakov, Dietz, as well as goalkeepers Fedotov and Sharychenkov, who won one cup each – left after the penultimate KHL triumphs.
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But two months after the end of the season, the army fans seem to have been waiting for the arrival of transfers: it is reported that in the near future six Russian hockey players with experience in the National Hockey League will join the CSKA squad.
The most experienced of them is Denis Guryanov. Graduated from Togliatti hockey in 2015, he left with number 12 to Dallas and a year after the draft he went abroad, where he made his way to the “stars” through the AHL. In his first full season in the NHL, Denis made a splash: the forward managed to make a name for himself during the regular season, and then did something unreal in the playoffs, which left the Stars two victories away from the Stanley Cup. Then Guryanov became the team’s second sniper, scored the first Russian poker in the history of the playoffs, and also scored the puck that brought Dallas to the first decisive series in 20 years.
But then things got worse: Denis stagnated for two more seasons, and in the 2022/2023 season there was a sharp decline in his career, which led to a trade to Montreal for Evgeniy Dadonov and further wanderings around the clubs, including with a return to the AHL. Guryanov was good at the Nashville farm club, but he never managed to return to the NHL level: his last games were spent in the elite with Philadelphia, where he was ineffective.
In general, it will be possible to form a full-fledged team from the forwards who came to CSKA: former army youth player Ruslan Iskhakov returns to the center, and club graduate Egor Afanasyev, who has already managed to play in red and blue. The jersey he played in the KHL several years ago will be an option on the left flank. Both forwards briefly appeared in the NHL last season: Ruslan made his league debut in the last game of the regular season with Pittsburgh and even managed to score a point with an assist, and also appeared once during the playoffs, but Egor played two games without scoring actions. The Islanders wanted to keep Iskhakov, and Nashville recently transferred the rights to Afanasyev to San Jose, but in the end the forwards decided to return home.
Egor Afanasyev
Photo: George Walker IV/AP Photo/TASS
In addition to two defenders, Dmitry Samorukov will once again play for CSKA, who in the 2020/2021 season already defended the colors of the military team and looked great, but his time in Moscow was overshadowed by an injury shortly before the end of the season. season. After a successful loan, Samorukov made his NHL debut with Edmonton, and then played two more games for St. Louis, but for the most part vegetated in the AHL.
The same cannot be said about Nikita Okhotyuk: the 23-year-old spent last season mainly with the San Jose and Calgary teams, and the Lights, who now own the rights to Okhotyuk, even made him a qualifying offer. However, Nikita decided to return to Russia.
The army team also did not forget to strengthen the back line: Ivan Prosvetov was invited to play the role of the first number along with the young talent Dmitry Gamzin. For several years, it seemed that the goalkeeper had good prospects of playing in the NHL, and some of his matches in Arizona were really impressive – take, for example, a meeting with Colorado in January 2022 or a series of three victories in March 2023.
Before the start of last season, Ivan ended up in the Avalanche via a waiver draft and had a real chance to make a name for himself by becoming Alexander Georgiev’s backup. But Prosvetov failed to reach a new level: his statistics as Avalanche’s goaltender were rather dismal, and the Russian again spent most of his time in the AHL, losing the competition for a starting spot to Justus Annunen.
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In fact, a completely new team is emerging at CSKA, consisting of young players who have something to prove: they are expected to make a step forward in the military club. But a reasonable question arises: how will the Muscovites be able to afford their transfers in the context of the IIHF sanctions?
It’s all pretty simple: on July 3, the State Duma adopted a bill that allows sports leagues to approve the regulations of their competitions independently of international federations. Simply put, the KHL will no longer need permission from the IIHF to register transfers to CSKA from abroad – now the league interacts only with the Ministry of Sport, which makes life much easier for the Moscow club.
Once the new law is signed and published, the military club will be replenished with six newcomers who returned to Russia from abroad. We just have to wait.
