More Early Off-Season Doings

Justin Danforth, here in action with Lukko in Finland’s Liiga, is one of the intriguing imports signed by Vityaz this past weekend. (Image Source)

The weekend brought further interesting developments in the KHL off-season; we have, for example, an old school player-for-player trade to report! And little Vityaz Moscow Oblast have made a big splash in the opening days of free agency, bringing in intriguing imports and proven KHL talents both. Read on, for that and more!

Vityaz Moscow Oblast, who briefly and heart-warmingly topped the KHL standings last fall before a couple of (suspiciously) lopsided trades with SKA undid their season, have had a resilient and active start to the signing season. They re-signed former NHL 40-goal man Alexander Semin in March, and have already, in the first three days of the signing season, added six new significant names. Incoming are (deep breath):

• Forward Fyodor Malykhin, signed from Spartak (he began last season with Traktor). Malykhin scored 22 goals as a youngster with Avtomobilist in 2013-14, but has hit double-digits only once since then. He remains a very useful player however.
• Forward Kaspars Daugaviņš, signed from Spartak. The 31-year-old Latvian posted a career high in points and led Spartak in goals in the last regular season (59 gp, 19-21-40) — and excellent “get” for Vityaz.
• Forward Justin Danforth, signed from Lukko in Finland’s Liiga. No guarantees of course that he can bring it to the KHL, but the 27-year-old Danforth was scoring champion in a very good league last season (56 gp, 27-33-50 for Lukko).
• Forward Mattias Tedenby, signed from HC Davos in Switzerland. A name that will be familiar to New Jersey Devils fans (Tedenby spent four seasons in the organization), coming over after posting nice numbers in the Swiss league last season (47 gp, 17-19-36).
• Defenceman Linus Hultström, signed from Djurgårdens IF in Sweden. He was 5th in defence scoring in Sweden last season (52 gp, 15-17-32), and, assuming that Jakub Jeřábek stays in Podolsk, will give Vityaz two nice scoring weapons at the back.
• Defenceman Artyom Borodkin, signed from Traktor. A depth defenceman, although of a reliable sort, with Traktor last season.

That’s actually nice full off-season of work for Vityaz, and they did it in the first three days of free-agency. With Semin re-signed, Alexei Byvaltsev still on the books, and the four new arrivals, Vityaz have the makings of a very decent top six or top nine forward group; that should take away the sting of losing their all-time top scorer in the KHL era, Alexei Makeyev, to Avtomobilist.

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Losing Malykhin and Daugaviņš represents a significant loss for the forward corps at Spartak Moscow, we’ll see who the replacements are. However, in the meantime the red-and-whites swung the off-season’s first big trade, sending forward Alexander Khokhlachyov to Avangard Omsk for forward Sergei Shirokov. They’re remarkably similar players; both have been good scorers throughout their careers, posting “low first line” numbers, although both were very, very, slightly off the pace this past season. Shirokov, at 34, is the elder of the two by eight years, and that may tip the balance slightly in Avangard’s favour, as Khokhlachyov does have more road ahead of him. But both players should feature prominently at their new teams, and both should do well.

Of note, Shirokov had his best-ever scoring season with SKA St. Petersburg in 2017-18, albeit on a very talented roster; that team, of course, was coached by current Spartak bench boss Oleg Znarok. Shirokov himself said today that Znarok’s presence at Spartak was a big reason why he was enthusiastic about joining his new team, calling him “a Coach with a capital ‘C,'” and saying “he knows how to build great teams.” It will be interesting to see how both players get along in their new homes when the pucks start flying.

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Finally, we’ll check in with Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg, who, in their second season among the big-money elite teams of the KHL… went out in the first round of the playoffs. That disappointment, plus the salary cap, mean changes a-coming in Yekaterinburg, and those started behind the bench when Andrei Martemyanov was replaced by Bill Peters. A controversial hire to be sure; Peters was last seen being fired by the Calgary Flames after revelations of racist behaviour earlier in his coaching career. On the ice, forward Nigel Dawes, one of the KHL’s all-time great scorers, is gone (destination unknown, but rumoured to be SKA St. Petersburg), and Avtomobilist may also lose homegrown defenceman Nikita Tryamkin to the Vancouver Canucks.

However, Avtomobilist should have plenty of weapons in 2020-21. Another solid home-grown talent, forward Anatoly Golyshev, is still under contract, and the team re-signed import forwards Dan Sexton and Brooks Macek, both of whom are excellent scorers. Replacing Dawes will likely be a “by committee” operation; as noted above, Avtomobilist have signed Alexei Makeyev from Vityaz (he’ll likely slot into the middle of the forward depth chart somewhere), and also picked up 20-goal scorer Stanislav Bocharov from Torpedo this weekend. But my favourite Avtomobilist signing in the opening days of May has been defenceman Zakhar Arzamastsev, who comes over from Salavat Yulaev Ufa. The 27-year-old from Novokuznetsk is coming off a bit a down year, numbers-wise, but he is a genuinely good two-way blueliner — the kind that can take care of business in his own end and chip in enough points to make a difference up front. Good, good, signing, especially if Tryamkin is indeed on his way out.

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More early-off-season news coming midway through the week; there are some teams out there who have not done much yet this month, and one of them is SKA St. Petersburg. Expect them to make some moves soon, and we should have news about Mr. Mozyakin as well… And what’s happening at Sibir these days, after they made it back to the playoffs and won their first-round series in 2019-20? Those stories and more next time — thank you for reading!