Loko!

Loko Yaroslavl, 2018-19 Kharlamov Cup Champions! (Image Source)

You could not have asked for a more dramatic Final series: seven games, with a total combined margin of victory of eight goals, and both teams holding the series lead at one point or another. And then there was what happened in Game 6… It was by turns exhilarating and heart-breaking, depending on whom one was cheering for, but in the end it was Loko Yaroslavl who won the 2018-19 Kharlamov Cup, championship of Russia’s top junior league (the MHL). Loko, who become the first team win the Kharlamov Cup three times, finished off a four-games-to-three Final win over Avto Yekaterinburg earlier today; read on, for a recap and some thoughts!

Grigory Denisenko. (Image Source)

The opening game of the amazing 2018-19 Kharlamov Cup Final saw Loko’s Grigory Denisenko, joint-top scorer at the recent World Juniors, score a hat-trick to bring his team back from 2-0 down to claim a 4-2 win over Avto in Yekaterinburg. Loko played the comeback card in the second game of the Final, too; trailing 2-1 entering the third period, they got goals from Anton Malyshev and Vladislav Rybakov to take a 3-2 victory.

Loko looked in control up 2-0 in the series, especially with the series headed to their home rink in Yaroslavl, but Avto rallied. Not for the first nor the last time in these playoffs, Yekaterinburg goalie Vladimir Galkin was spectacular, making 52 saves in Game 3 to get Avto a vital 1-0 win (Alexander Derbenyov scored the only goal). Galkin went right back to work in Game 4, stopping 42 shots as Avto got third-period goals from Rybakov and Kirill Tyutyayev to win 2-1 and even the series. To this point, the road team had won every game, but Avto were able to change that in Game 5 in Yekaterinburg, winning 2-1 in overtime on Daniil Zaitsev’s goal (and Galkin’s 48 saves).

The series had completely turned around, with Avto now up 3-2 and on the verge of taking their first Kharlamov Cup. And things looked even better for Avto as they nursed a 2-0 third period lead into the closing minutes of Game 6 on goals by Maxim Sedov and Maxim Rasseikin. But the series was about to take another twist. With 2:01 left on the clock, Artur Kayumov got Lokomotiv to within one, and they equalized with 43 seconds left thanks to 2019 World Juniors participant Kirill Slepets. The Avto players were visibly stunned, and the result of overtime was almost a foregone conclusion. The extra frame lasted just four minutes before Georgy Ivanov won it for Loko, and sent the series to the dreaded Game 7. It must be said that it was no more than Loko deserved in Game 6; they outshot Avto 50-16 in the contest.

Game 7 could have been an anti-climax after that, but instead it was wide-open and entertaining, for all that it ended 1-0. The teams combined for 76 shots (Loko had the slight advantage, 40-36), and both Avto’s Galkin and Loko’s Daniil Isayev were excellent in goal. The lone marker, when it arrived early in the second period, came from Loko’s Maxim Denezhkin, and though Avto launched a series of increasingly desperate forays as the game wore on, they could not find an equalizer. The score was still 1-0 when the clock ran out, and Loko, as mentioned above, have their second straight Kharlamov Cup and their third in four seasons.

One suspects that there will be some sleepless nights for the Avto players and coach Vitaly Solovyov; they were two minutes from a championship, with a two-goal lead, and it all fell apart on them. But that should not detract much from what has been a great year for Yekaterinburg hockey. Avto, like their parent club Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg, advanced further in the playoffs than they ever had before; the junior side had not been past the second round in any previous season. And in the semifinal, they knocked out the top overall seed, SKA-1946 St. Petersburg. It was a breakthrough year for them, and there is no particular reason why they cannot contend again in 2019-20.

Vladimir Galkin. (Image Source)

Avto goalie Vladimir Galkin was named the playoff MVP, and really there were few if any alternate candidates. The 18-year-old was excellent throughout the post-season, finishing with a 95.1 sv% in 20 games, but he turned it up even further in the Final. Over the seven games of the Final, Galkin stopped 296 of 309 shots for a 95.8 sv% in the face of Loko attack that peppered him with 43 shots per 60 minutes. At 5’10” and 165 lbs., he’s not your typical 21st-century behemoth goalie, but he stops the shots and that’s what counts.

But it is Loko Yaroslavl who are the champions, and most deservedly so! Coach Dmitry Krasotkin has, over his four seasons in charge, captured the Kharlamov Cup three times, and his current and former pupils are establishing themselves in the KHL, with the Russian junior team, and increasingly on the radar of NHL clubs. Loko were reinforced down the playoff stretch by young players who had been doing well in the KHL with Lokomotiv (Game 6 heroes Kayumov and Ivanov, for example, and Game 1 hat-tricker Denisenko); that players from the junior program are finding their feet in the big league so quickly speaks well of what coach Krasotkin and his staff have been doing.

Perhaps most impressively, Loko shut down an Avto team that had been scoring at a fairly prodigious rate in the playoffs. Maxim Rasseikin was held to just two goals and no assists in the Final; the impressiveness of that feat is shown by the fact that Rasseikin still finished first in post-season goals, with ten (four more than anybody else). Loko spread the scoring around their lineup, with the afore-mentioned Slepets leading the way with a line of 17 gp, 4-6-10 (Denisenko was Loko’s top sniper, with six). Their depth helped them overcome the early departure of forward Ilya Nikolayev, who scored 5-3-8 in six playoff games before joining Team Russia at the U18 Worlds.

(Image Source)

So congratulations to both teams, and particularly to Kharlamov Cup champions Loko Yaroslavl! As mentioned earlier, Loko was one of three teams to secure their league championship today; tomorrow, we’ll take a look at the triumphs of Saryarka Karaganda and Agidel Ufa. And thank you for reading!