Tornado Moscow Oblast Look for Redemption in 2019-20

Tornado Moscow Oblast. (Image Source)

Tornado Moscow Oblast, based in the town of Dmitrov just north of Russia’s capital, used to rule the roost in the Women’s Hockey League; they have won nine titles since their founding in 2003, including six in seven seasons between 2011 and 2017. But Tornado in 2018-19 were a shadow of their usual self, and 2019-20 opens with many more questions than answers about the former powerhouse. Read on…

2018-19 Record: 15 W — 4 OT/SO W — 1 OT/SO L — 15 L (5th in regular season, Missed Playoffs). Goals For: 146 (2nd). Goals Against: 99 (5th).

Points% vs. Opponents:

• vs. Agidel: .000
• vs. Biryusa: .944
• vs. Dynamo: .278
• vs. Gorny: .444
• vs. SKIF: .444
• vs. SKSO: 1.000

A new logo for Tornado Moscow Oblast this season! (Image Source)

Team Roster (via team website).

Head Coach: Alexei Chistyakov.

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How was 2018-19?

Well, frankly, it was a disaster for a team that had never previously finished outside the top two in the ZhHL. The departures on maternity leave of forward Lyudmila Mishina (née Belyakova) and defender Angelina Goncharenko, and of fellow-blueliner Mariya Batalova to Agidel Ufa, proved too much to overcome. Despite the best efforts of prolific forward Anna Shokhina, who won her third straight ZhHL scoring title, Tornado fell to fifth place and failed to make the playoffs (they also failed to take a single point from six games against arch-rivals Agidel Ufa). It was a particularly painful exit given that Tornado needed only a win at home vs. SKIF in their final match to secure a post-season berth, and held a third-period lead in that game before the Nizhny Novgorod team came back to break their hearts.

Who has departed this summer?

The big departure from Tornado’s roster is forward Yelena Dergachyova, who joins Goncharenko and Mishina on maternity leave this season. That’s another massive blow to the Tornado group that dominated the league in years past; over the last five seasons, Dergachyova scored 89 goals and had 258 points in 150 games for the team. The Russian national team will miss her as well. Also gone from last season’s Tornado roster is the club’s longtime starting goalie, Nadezhda Alexandrova, who has retired. In addition to her long service in the league with Tornado and SKIF, Alexandrova represented Russia at two Olympics and three World Championships, and was named Best Goalie at the 2013 Worlds when he helped the national team to a bronze medal.

Finally, this season Tornado are also without two young players who have moved on to other clubs in the league: forward Darya Beloglazova, now with Dynamo St. Petersburg, and defender Svetlana Bobrova, who has signed with SK Sverdlovsk Oblast. Both 19-year-olds will be missed, with Beloglazova’s dangerous goal-scoring ability a particularly big loss.

Who is new on the roster?

Tornado have turned to the youth ranks for reinforcement, bringing in a quartet of youngsters from various Moscow-area youth hockey programs. Forwards Yekaterina Davletshina, Polina Tarasova, and Valeriya Dryndina (ages 15, 16, and 17, respectively) are now on the roster, as is 17-year-old defender Anastasiya Petina; all four have seen time in recent seasons with the U16 and/or U18 national teams. Dryndina has yet to play for Tornado this season, but the other three have made their ZhHL debuts, and Davletshina, the youngest of the newcomers, has already recorded her first professional goal.

Whom should we be watching?

In past years, we’d talk about Tornado’s “Big Five,” the forward line of Anna Shokhina, Yelena Dergachyova, and Alevtina Shtaryova, backed up by defenders Angelina Goncharenko and Nina Pirogova. Well, the absences of Goncharenko and Dergachyova have reduced that group to three, but its remaining members are definitely worth watching, and they’ll carry much of the load for Tornado this season once again.

Anna Shokhina. (Image Source)

Shokhina has won the last three ZhHL scoring titles (she went 36-40-76 in 33 games last season), and probably trails only Olga Sosina for the title of best forward in the league (she’s not far behind Sosina, either). She’s vital for both Tornado and the Russian national team, even if she has had some issues in the area of keeping her temper and avoiding the penalty box (many ZhHL players came to hockey via other sports; Shokhina was a boxer first, and it shows). Shtaryova, meanwhile, has won the ZhHL goalscoring title twice in her career, and posted a line of 36 gp, 28-30-58 last season. So far in 2019-20, it looks like versatile veteran Galina Skiba will occupy Dergachyova’s normal place alongside Shtaryova and Shokhina, although the roster does include some other dangerous forwards like Yelizaveta Shkaleva and Alyona Starovoitova, to name but two.

Defender Pirogova, as well, is a player worth watching, a very offensively-gifted defender who has an enforcer’s edge to her game. Her partner used to be the now-absent Goncharenko, and so far this season that place has been taken by 17-year-old Anna Savonina. I’m a big fan of Savonina, who shows every sign of being one of the key members of the “next generation” of Russian national-team blueliners, and I expect that we’ll be hearing her name for some time. Should, however, Savonina falter or get hurt this season, Darya Zubok is another who could fill in with Pirogova on the top pairing; she’s got good two-way ability.

And Nadezhda Alexandrova’s retirement means that the goaltending is in new hands in Dmitrov this winter. Yelizaveta Kondakova, Alexandrova’s backup the last couple of seasons, will play her fair share, and has already gotten some attention from the national team this summer — we’ll see if she gets more as the season goes along. And U18 national-team starter Anna Alpatova should draw in regularly as well, having made a brief ZhHL debut last season.

Who’s the coach?

51-year-old Alexei Chistyakov remains in charge at Tornado, despite last season’s failure to make the playoffs, and despite a summer in which he was replaced in the post of head coach of the Russian national team. Chistyakov is very experienced as a women’s hockey coach, and has had great success with this team in the past, so it is not unreasonable that he remains behind the bench, but he is likely in need of an improvement in his squad’s fortunes this season.

Anything else?

One of Tornado’s young newcomers, defender Anastasiya Petina. (Image Source)

This is a very, very, young team; Tornado currently have exactly one player over the age of 22 (it’s Galina Skiba, who made her World Championship debut in 2005). That, of course, will bring some challenges, but with “experienced but young” players like Pirogova, Shokhina, and Shtaryova, it also brings a very solid base upon which to build. In fact, it’s a bit difficult to figure out what to expect from this team in 2019-20; yes, they’re young and have lost some important players, but on the other hand there are a number of names on the roster who could break out, and in a big way, and that first line still looks devastatingly good. While a return to the post-season is not guaranteed, at all, this remains a dangerous team for any opponent.

Tornado’s start to this season has fit in well with the “hard to know what to expect” notion; they were beaten twice at home by SKIF to start, but then rebounded to take two wins off Biryusa Krasnoyarsk. One minor note of concern may be Shokhina’s slow start; she’s scored just 2-1-3 in four games so far. However, small sample size, etc., and the season is still very young. Tornado’s next four games will answer a lot of questions; they host league newcomers KRS Vanke Rays Shenzhen for two games starting tomorrow, then head off on their first road trip, which opens in Ufa against mighty Agidel on October 10th.

One last note: as you can see from the photos Tornado have quite spiffy new uniforms! Their previous logo has been updated, and the colours changed slightly while maintaining their familiar black-and-gold theme.

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Thank you for reading! Next up in this series: Gorny St. Petersburg.