The Bragin Era Begins (Updated)

New Russian men’s national-team head coach Valery Bragin. (Image Source)

A move that had been rumoured for a month or so became official today, and for the second straight summer the Russian Hockey Federation has announced a new coach for the senior men’s national team. At about this time last year, it was Alexei Kudashov taking over for Ilya Vorobyov; now it is Kudashov’s turn to be replaced, and his replacement both with the national team and with the KHL’s SKA St. Petersburg club will the longtime coach of Russia’s national U20 men’s team (i.e. the World Juniors squad), Valery Bragin. Hall-of-Famer Igor Larionov will be the new head coach of the U20 team, a very interesting move in its own right. Read on, for more details, and some thoughts!

Bragin, now 64 years old, is a familiar name to fans of international hockey, having coached Russia’s entry at the World Juniors in eight of the last ten seasons, including the six most recent tournaments. His record at those competitions is exemplary; Russia finished off the podium only once in his tenure (in 2017-18), a stretch of consistency that no other country can boast. His critics will note that they won gold only once in that stretch, and that in Bragin’s first World Juniors in 2010-11. However, finishing top-three at a ten-team tournament with three knockout rounds seven times out of eight is no mean feat; in terms of his international resume, Bragin has more than earned his chance to coach the senior squad. Furthermore, a considerable segment of his players on the senior national team will be familiar with him from their junior hockey days, and it is hoped that this familiarity will prove an advantage. Alexei Zhamnov, Andrei Kozyrev, and Alexander Boikov will join Bratin’s national-team staff as assistants, while longtime goalie coach Rashit Davydov remains in that post.

As has become standard operating procedure for Russian national-team bench bosses, Bragin also takes over the coaching reins at SKA St. Petersburg. In club hockey, however, his C.V. is far less impressive. He was coach of Khimik Voskresensk and Spartak Moscow in the days of the old Russian Superleague, but his only KHL-era head-coaching experience came during a brief and unsuccessful stint with CSKA at the start of the 2012-13 season. We will see how he gets on, but he would likely do well to rely heavily on his staff at SKA, which will include Kozyrev as senior coach, Boikov as assistant, and Davydov as goalie coach.

And what of Alexei Kudashov, whom Bragin replaces both with the national team and with SKA? There were conflicting reports today as to why he has been replaced, with national-team Chief of Staff Roman Rotenberg saying that the move came at Kudashov’s own behest and was due to family commitments, while Russian Hockey Federation President Vladislav Tretyak said it was a performance-related decision by the FHR. Certainly, either possibility is reasonable; the workload of coaching both the national team and one of the KHL’s giant clubs is massive, and we can see how it might take a toll on family life. But by the same token Kudashov’s SKA team in 2019-20 had a very “meh” start to the season, although matters improved as the campaign went along, while his national squad finished fourth and last at the 2019-20 Euro Hockey Tour (based on the three legs, out of four, that were played before the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down). Doing poorly at the EHT is not a crime, as coaches often use the competition to experiment with their rosters (Kudashov certain did so), but Russia’s 3-6 record, with just one regulation victory, at the 2019-20 tournament may have set alarm bells ringing somewhat at FHR headquarters. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic we will never find out what Kudashov would have done for the World Championship.

Update: Kudashov himself has now spoken to the media, and confirmed that it was his own decision not to extend his contract with SKA and the national team.

In any case, we may well see Kudashov again at some point, after some rest and recovery — he’s only 48, and has some nice things on coaching resume. In the meantime, he remains with the FHR as a consultant.

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Hired to replace Bragin with U20 men’s national team is Igor Larionov, and he surely needs little introduction to hockey fans. Now 59 years old, Larionov is in the Hockey Hall of Fame as a player, a legacy of his time as the lynchpin of the KLM line with CSKA Moscow and the Soviet national team in the 1980s, and as a member of the Detroit Red Wings’ “Russian Five” in the subsequent decade. He is, it must be said, very short of coaching experience (his first high-level coaching job came just last season, as an assistant to Bragin with the U20 Team Russia), and is starting his career behind the bench at a relatively advanced age. However, since retiring as a player in 2004, he has remained in touch with the game a player agent, and has long been renowned for his thoughtfulness and intelligence. There is never any guarantee of success for a star player stepping a coach’s role (viz. Wayne Gretzky, and others), but Larionov likely has the tools for the job, in any case.

The other sub-plot involving Larionov involves his sometimes-fractious relationship with hockey in his home country. His work as an agent, particularly in convincing young Russian players to try their luck in North America, has earned him some criticism at home, and unlike his former team-mates Vyacheslav Fetisov and Vladislav Tretyak, he never became part of the Russian hockey establishment. But the last couple of years have seen something of a welcome rapprochement, culminating in Larionov’s hiring as assistant with the World Juniors team last season. He undoubtedly has contributions to make to the national program in Russia, and its good to see him fully back in the fold.

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There were some other coaching notes from the Russian national program today. Oleg Bratash remains bench boss of the Russian men’s ‘B’ national team (the “Olympic Team”), a post he has occupied for the last couple of years. Albert Leshchyov is the new head coach of the U18 men’s national team; last season he was in charge of CSKA Moscow’s junior team Krasnaya Armiya Moscow. Vladimir Potapov, an assistant with the U18 program last season, takes over the U17s, while former VHL head coach Alexander Titov will run the U16 national team. All of the new coaches announced today, including Bragin and Larionov, have signed contracts through the 2021-22 season.

There were no changes among the head coaches of any of the Russian women’s national teams. Evgeny Bobariko remains in charge of the senior women’s team, with Agidel Ufa bench boss Denis Afinogenov coaching the senior ‘B’ squad. Alexander Syrtsev, whose U18 women’s team did tremendous work in winning a bronze medal at the 2019-20 Worlds, will coach that team again next season, and will also run the U16 girls’ program.