SKA has no goals and no wins, Kuznetsov is not visible, other stars have left. What is happening?
September 12, 2024, 23:30 Moscow time Audio version: Your browser does not support the audio element.
The army team will probably get out of the crisis easily, but overall the team will not change.
In the off-season, SKA did everything possible to form a strong squad, despite the tight salary cap. Some, such as Grigorenko and Andronov, moved to St. Petersburg, significantly reducing their financial demands. And Arseniy Gritsyuk had to voluntarily (as they try to convince us) increase his money by as much as five times under the current contract. The cherry on the cake was the transfer to SKA of Evgeniy Kuznetsov, organized with pomp by the army’s marketing department and personally by Roman Rotenberg.
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As a result, the St. Petersburg club had the opportunity to form a lineup for matches in such a way that the fourth offensive line of SKA resembles the first of any other KHL club. And this despite the fact that several excellent players are always forced to remain out of the application for the match, as they simply do not fit into it.
But at the start of the season, all this shine did not shine at all. In fact, SKA played as it should have only in the first half of the first regular season match against Magnitka. Then the army team wonderfully led the Ural team with all three, creating moment after moment and showing high-level combination and aggressive hockey. Then – complete disappointment. Metallurg rebuilt itself during a break and, as a result, snatched victory from SKA. In the next match, the army won in Togliatti, but with a work style, very simple for such a selection of players, and which almost allowed Lada to equalize the score in the third period. In Yaroslavl, all the stellar attack of SKA was skillfully stifled by Lokomotiv, and now Roman Rotenberg’s team could not score a single goal at home against Traktor.
Almost all of SKA’s leaders have disappeared. In the first two games, the KHL’s main altruist, Gritsyuk, performed well, but in the games against the powerful and organized defense of Lokomotiv and Traktor, he also disappeared. Where is Tolchinsky? Where is Grigorenko? Where is Alistrov? Where are Zykov, Khairullin and Vorobyov? The top seven have scored only two goals so far, one of them into an empty net. The energizing Tolchinsky simply left, the cold-blooded sniper Grigorenko cannot score into an empty net, which allowed Zach Fucala to make a crazy save. But any great save by a goalkeeper is, first of all, a bad shot by the attacker.
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Well, Kuznetsov looks very sad. After scoring against Magnitogorsk in the first match, yesterday’s NHL player, whose motivation was undoubted, simply disappeared. Evgeniy does not score, does not pass, does not create. A reminder that there was a reason why his NHL career went downhill so quickly. In the first home game of the season, Kuznetsov did not show the slightest desire to show off and was completely invisible, not counting a shot from the mid-zone in the second half, which Fucale saved without problems. Otherwise, there are no useful actions and emotions from the “main star of the league.” Although there is one exception – Kuznetsov’s play on the spot in the match against Traktor was fantastic. 85% of the face-offs won, 17 out of 20! But, of course, Evgeny was given a separate presentation not for those home successes, from which SKA cannot even get dividends.
Evgeny Kuznetsov
Photo: ska.ru
The St. Petersburg army lost three out of four matches at the start of the season. The most powerful attack of its name, SKA, does not score two games in a row – this is nonsense. However, should we really be surprised? It was obvious that the gigantic competition and constant nervous tension within the team did not contribute to the productivity of hockey players, who actually had no room for error with this or that length and depth of the bench. It was obvious that the style of SKA (essentially, running and shooting) does not help numerous creative and talented forwards to reveal themselves, and the constant change of three does not allow us to speculate about some kind of teamwork, “chemistry”. And at the beginning of this season, the army team also disgustingly converts the majority, which deprives the team of a salvation.
Today, “Traktor” came to St. Petersburg, played with patience and discipline, waited for the hosts’ mistakes and punished them with the magic hands of Maxim Shabanov and Vitaly Kravtsov. Yes, Fucale played brilliantly for the Chelyabinsk team, making 38 saves. But which of these shots can be remembered as a real missed scoring opportunity, except for that very episode with a super save by the Canadian goalkeeper?
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The weak compatibility of the SKA squad with the style preached by the army’s coaching staff became apparent already in the summer. It was also read that Petersburg would not benefit from such a number of attackers and that Rotenberg would initiate large-scale rotation maneuvers at the first opportunity. And this is what this leads to now.
Here, however, it should be said that the situation is not new for SKA. For example, the military team also started badly last season and was out of the playoff zone until November, and then with a series of victories rushed to the top. Most likely, something similar will happen now; SKA will overcome the difficulties of the regular season thanks to its strength.
However, the saddest thing for St. Petersburg is that there is nothing new in the military team this season, despite the colossal strengthening of the attack. It is not clear that the team is growing and developing as a team, that mistakes are really being worked on. This means that the first meeting in the playoffs with an organized and patient opponent will be a disaster for SKA. This is already evident.
