The Women’s Hockey League in 2018-19

Agidel Ufa’s Polina Luchnikova (#87) camps out in front of Tornado Moscow Oblast goalie Nadezhda Alexandrova and Galina Skiba during Sunday’s opening game of the 2018-19 Women’s Hockey League season.  Luchnikova, making her Agidel debut, had a huge game, scoring twice to lead her team to a 3-2 victory.  (Image Source)

The Russian Women’s Hockey League began it’s 2018-19 season on Sunday, as defending champions Agidel Ufa hosted their arch-rivals, and last year’s beaten finalists, Tornado Moscow Oblast.  This season will be the fourth in the Women’s Hockey League is under the aegis of the KHL, and it will feature some changes from last season.  Most notably, with the Olympics out of the way, the 2018-19 regular season will expand from 24 games per team to 36.  It will be followed once again by a two-round playoff featuring the top four regular-season squads.  The lineup of teams?  That is unchanged from the seven who took part in 2017-18.  So read on, for a look at each of those clubs, their major off-season moves, and their prospects for the coming season.

 

Agidel Ufa were first-time champions in 2017-18, and now the task is to do it again.  The Bashkir team will enter the season minus some veteran help last time; Alexandra Vafina and Hungary’s Fanni Gasparics are gone from the forward lines, Alexandra Kapustina and Anna Shchukina from the defence, and Mariya Sorokina will not return to back up Anna Prugova in goal.  On the plus side, Agidel have added national-team defender Mariya Batalova from arch-rivals Tornado Moscow Oblast to solidify the blueline, and up front have arrived, from SKIF Nizhny Novgorod, two of Russian hockey’s most exciting young talents in 16-year-olds Ilona Markova and Polina Luchnikova.

Olga Sosina with the Russian national team.  (Image Source)

And the Agidel forward group can still rely on the prodigious Olga Sosina, current holder of the league’s Most Outstanding Player award, winner of the playoff scoring race with ten points in five games, and captain of the Russian national team.  Another good scorer up front: Slovakia’s Nicol Čupková, and there is a slew of experienced Russian national-teamers on the squad as well (too many to name each here, but we will get to know them again over the course of the season).  And Prugova’s .942 sv% in 20 games was second-best among goalies who played at least five matches.  Agidel are well-set for a title defence.

 

One more to watch: 19-year-old forward Yelizaveta Rodnova came on late last season, finishing with 13 points in 19 games plus six in five playoff contests.  The Russian national team has taken note, too.

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Tornado Moscow Oblast saw their three-year title run come to an end in 2017-18, and that has meant some departures from the squad.  Of particular note are the exits of the above-mentioned Batalova and of a very good forward in former NWHLer Lyudmila Mishina (née Belyakova).  On their way in, however, are some intriguing young players, among them Moscow Oblast forward Anna Lopukhova and Smolensk’s Oxana Shupenko; the latter of those two had a tremendous 2017-18 season in Russia’s amateur women’s league for Groza-1 St. Petersburg, scoring 21 points in nine games.

Anna Shokhina. (Image Source)

And Tornado’s famous “Big Five” are still there to terrorize the opposition.  Forwards Anna Shokhina (regular-season scoring champion for the second straight year in 2017-18), Yelena Dergachyova, and Alevtina Shtaryova form Tornado’s first forward line, playing in front of defenders Angelina Goncharenko and Nina Pirogova.  They will be supported by some very good young players such as Yelizaveta Shkalyova, Darya Beloglazova, Alyona Starovoitova, etc.  plus some solid experience as exemplified by the under-rated Galina Skiba.  Tornado will be there among the favourites yet again.

 

One more to watch: goalie Anna Alpatova will likely make her Women’s Hockey League debut this season, although the experienced Nadezhda Alexandrova should still be the number one.  Alpatova, just 16, will also (barring injury) be Russia’s starter at the U18 Women’s Worlds in January, and should reprise that role in 2019 and 2020 as well.

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Valeriya Merkusheva. (Image Source)

Dynamo St. Peterburg will once again look to the netminding of Valeriya Merkusheva this coming season; the 18-year-old goalie posted the league’s best sv% last season (.952 in 22 games) and flat-out won the Dynamo starting job away from experienced national-teamer Mariya Sorokina.  This year Merkusheva will once again be protected by Russian national-teamers on defence in Yekaterina Nikolayeva and Anastasiya Chistyakova.

 

Up front, a very decent but not over-powering forward trio of Yekaterina Smolina, Yevgeniya Dyupina, and Diana Kanayeva will be the ones to keep in mind.  The big departure from last year’s roster is likely reliable Czech forward Alena Mills (née Polenská).  This is a team built on ungenerous defence and goaltending (Dynamo gave up the fewest goals in the league last season, with 35), and that trait will once again be at the fore as they look for a third straight podium finish.

Dynamo may find some extra incentive this season in the form of a local rival in the league.  More on that in a bit!

One more to watch: while goal-prevention is Dynamo’s calling-card, they also had one of 2017-18’s top-scoring defenders in Czechia’s Aneta Tejralová.  She finished tied for fourth in blueline points last season (24 gp, 5-12-17).

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Oxana Bratishcheva celebrates a goal. (Image Source)

Former powerhouse SKIF Nizhny Novgorod emerged from a rebuilding phase last season, finishing fourth and making the league’s first-ever playoffs.  Building on that becomes the next task, and SKIF have brought in some very experienced players in forward Alexandra Vafina and defenders Anna Shchukina and Alexandra Kapustina.  And SKIF’s national-champion youth program remains in effect; despite losing some very talented youngsters like the above-mentioned Luchnikova and Markova, the team can still turn to the likes of forwards Oxana Bratishcheva (18 years old) and Polina Bolgareva (19) and defender Yelena Provorova (16); there are more on the way too.  And in net there remains 20-year-old Valeriya Tarakanova, with the promising 18-year-old Diana Farkhutdinova behind her.  It’s a healthy mix of youth and experience, and SKIF should be in the serious running for a playoff spot again.

 

One player who will be conspicuous by her absence from SKIF this winter: Finnish defender Karoliina Rantamäki.  Rantamäki is a true pioneer of European women’s hockey, having first played professionally in 1992-93 (her first of many international appearances came in 1995-96).  She had been a reassuring presence on the SKIF blueline since 2008-09, but now seems to have decided to hang up the skates.  Here’s wishing her a happy retirement if so; she has most certainly earned it!

One more to watch: Another of SKIF’s teenaged brigade up front, Viktoriya Kulishova broke out last season to score 5-10-15 in 24 games — and got her first-ever Olympic goal as well.

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The new season means a new rink and a big home international tournament for Biryusa Krasnoyarsk, who just missed put on the post-season in 2017-18.  In 2018-19, they will play at the just-opened 7000-seat Platinum Arena Krasnoyarsk, built to host the 2019 Winter Universiade.  A number of Biryusa players will be looking to take part in that event, at which Russia’s women’s hockey team is two-time defending gold medalists.  So it will be an exciting season in Krasnoyarsk for sure!

Valeriya Pavlova. (Image Source)

As for the club, its big names remain experienced national team goalie Nadezhda Morozova and high-scoring forward Valeriya Pavlova (also a frequent player for Team Russia), and those two will be the keys to Biryusa returning to the post-season.  But like SKIF, Biryusa have good young players to call upon as well, including forwards Yekaterina Dobrodeyeva and Alexandra Budanova and defender Yekaterina Lobova (to name but three).  While the competition for that final playoff spot will be very fierce this season, the Krasnoyarsk team should be in the thick of the fight.

 

One more to watch: forward Lidiya Malyavko missed half of 2017-18 with injury — a grave loss for Biryusa since she scored 7-5-12 in the 12 games she did play.  She is apparently healthy again, and should be a major contributor.

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Fanuza Kadirova. (Image Source)

It has been a wild summer for Gorny Ukhta/St. Petersburg, the team formerly known as Arktik-Universitet Ukhta.  After a season in which they won just four out of 24 games, the team has changed names, will change its home city in November, and splashed out in a big way in the summer signing season.  Incoming are two forwards with North American professional experience in Canadian Tatiana Rafter, who spent last season with the NWHL’s Metropolitan Riveters and American Hayley Williams from the CWHL’s Toronto Furies.  And ex-Russian national team Olympic netminder Yuliya Leskina also arrives and will be presumably be Gorny’s starter in goal.  Those players join a roster that already includes some national-team talent in highly-skilled forward Fanuza Kadirova, as well as hard-nosed defender Liana Ganeyeva.

 

As for the move from Ukhta to St. Petersburg, it is a bit bittersweet.  While on the one hand it was neat to have a team based in a remote small city in the North, on the other the geography did hurt the club’s ability to attract as much top-notch talent as some others.  Relocating to St. Petersburg should help the team become much more competitive on the ice.  We will see how it goes, and how Gorny’s rivalry with Dynamo develops!

One more to watch: forward Diana Bulatova is the kind of player whom coaches like and opponents hate.  An experienced, tough, player, Bulatova also contributes useful amounts of scoring to the cause.

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For SK Sverdlovsk Oblast, the long hunt goes on; it was 2013-14, then playing as Spartak-Merkury Yekaterinburg, that the club last won a game or even claimed a point.  And this season they must cope with the departure of experienced goalie Yuliya Leskina and forward Mariya Kokoshkina, who scored almost a third of the team’s goals last season (she had 11; SKSO scored 34).  However, the Urals team has added a pair of experienced defenders from champions Agidel:  Yekaterina Ananyina, who signed in her hometown after her unfortunately rancorous departure from the Ufa team, and Yekaterina Zakharova.  Other players with league experience have arrived from Tornado and Biryusa, including, from the latter, former Russian U18 national team forward Alexandra Vovrushko.

What hope for breaking that long losing streak?  We will see, but the added roster experience won’t hurt.

Arina Konina in action for Severyanka Cherepovets.  (Image Source)

One more to watch: 18-year-old goalie Arina Konina is another newcomer to SKSO this season, coming in from Severyanka Cherepovets.  Last season’s for Severyanka’s U18 team in the Russian women’s amateur league, she posted a 0.75 GAA in eight games.  She has also caught the eye of the Russian national U18 program in the past.

 

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Agidel’s goals from Sunday’s game against Tornado.  (thanks to Denis Osipchuk)

So those are the seven teams for 2018-19 (and do also check out LocksTheFox’s Women’s Hockey League preview at The Ice Garden)!  And for defending champions Agidel, opening day could hardly have gone better.  Two goals in 20 seconds in the first period against Tornado paced Agidel to a 3-2 victory, with Polina Luchnikova, one of their exciting new signings from SKIF, finding the net twice in her Ufa debut.  Agidel’s other goal came from Nicol Čupková, and it was 300th career point with Agidel.  Alevtina Shtaryova scored both goals for Tornado, getting her own season off to a good start despite the loss.  So it is Agidel with their noses in front early, as they look to defend their first-ever championship.

Those two teams will meet again on Monday as the schedule kicks into full gear; also on Monday, SKSO will host Biryusa, and SKIF will be at home to welcome Dynamo.  Check the YouTube channels of home teams Agidel, SKSO, and SKIF for game streams, and the league website for schedules and start-times (all times listed are Moscow times).

Thank you for reading, and enjoy the season!