KHL Power Rankings – Week 1

The KHL 2013-2014 season kicks off today with a rematch between last year’s two finalists:  Dynamo Moscow and Traktor Chelyabinsk.  St. Petersburg SKA grabbed the first edition top spot as the best regular season team last year and then adding several players, including Ilya Kovalchuk.  The last spot goes to Metallurg Nk who gave up their top 11 skaters in the offseason.

Let’s not pretend this first run was an easy exercise.  With the NHL lockout, many teams had NHL players on their roster up until the last month of the KHL season.  A couple teams fell hard when they sent their players back.  Other teams were strong without any lockout guys.  Add in two new expansion teams, one full of former NHL and AHL players, and there are a lot of questions marks.  This is not meant to be a prediction of who will win the Gagarin Cup, make the playoffs, etc.  This is a first run at Power Rankings based on the offseason and last season’s work.

I plan to give Power Rankings weekly on Mondays, so stay tuned to see what changes over the 50+ scheduled games between now and Sunday.  Here we go….hockey season is in!

Rank	Team	Record	Trend	Comment
1	SKA St. Petersburg	N/A	—	One man doesn’t make a team, but last year’s best regular season team just picked up Ilya Kovalchuk.  Big improvement for an already stacked team.
2	Dynamo Moscow	N/A	—	Two championships in a row put Dynamo in the second spot.  They still have a strong team and should be competitive.
3	AK Bars Kazan	N/A	—	Last year’s Best-in-the-East club lost a seven game series to Traktor. Still the best in the east on paper.
4	Traktor Chelyabinsk	N/A	—	Lost in six games to the eventual champs.  Traktor will be very competitive and could make a run at a top two seed and AK Bars.
5	CSKA Moscow	N/A	—	Lost some big NHLers in the lockout, but also picked up some big names in the offseason. They could be a quick mover to the top.
6	Avangard Omsk	N/A	—	Avangard is not as good as they were last season and the Western teams below them have improved.  Starting off a little lower than they finished last season.
7	Salavat Yuleav Ufa	N/A	—	Salavat was strong last season without lockout players.  The pickup of Hartikainen and keeping their best guys is a recipe for an even better season than last.
8	Barys Astana	N/A	—	Another team that was strong without NHLers.  They didn’t make many moves like Ufa, but they could move up quick if the teams with a lot of lockout players suffer.
9	Lokomotiv Yaroslavl	N/A	—	Anisimov is back with the Blue Jackets and they lost some other top guys from last season.  Still good after a tragic plane crash, but a step back from last year.
10	Metallurg Magnitogorsk	N/A	—	Metallurg MG might drop from here quick. Lost a ton of games down the stretch when the NHL guys left.  GK Ahonen is gone, but they still have the league’s top scorer in Mozyakin.
11	KHL Medvescak Zagreb	N/A	—	A team filled with AHL/NHL misfits playing half their games on a North American sized rink.  Better on paper than the other non-Russian clubs in the West.
12	Sibir Novosibirsk	N/A	—	They kept their top scoring Finnish duo intact, which is great for regular season results.  Will these guys be able to score in the playoffs if Sibir gets in?
13	Slovan Bratislava	N/A	—	Slovaks play a great team game and these guys have kept their core together (minus Miroslav Satan), made up of countrymen.  Playoffs are still possible with not much pressure from the bottom.
14	Lev Praha	N/A	—	Lev gets Nik Zherdev; Nik Zherdev leaves a week before the season starts; Lev being stared down by Vityaz, Donbass and Medvescak.  Could they drop out of the playoffs?
15	Severstal Cherepovets	N/A	—	Severstal lost Bergfors in the expansion draft and a lot of other top scorers.  Didn’t do much to replace them.  Do they still have enough?
16	Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk	N/A	—	42 point defender Mamashev and top scoring forward Koukal are still on board.  The d-men can score, but forward strength will need to be better to get to the top.
17	Donbass Donetsk	N/A	—	Donetsk kept their top group and picked up a good contributor in Teemu Laine.  Others should slip and give the Ukranian club a playoff shot.
18	Atlant Moscow Oblast	N/A	—	Atlant couldn’t get rid of Zherdev in the expansion draft and dropped him for nothing after leading the team in scoring.  That is going to hurt.
19	Yugra Khanty-Mansiysk	N/A	—	The loss of Anton But could hurt a bit, though Skorokhodov and Sitnikov are still on board.  Didn’t do a lot to improve their roster, so they will need better play all around.
20	Vityaz Chekhov	N/A	—	Vityaz was the third worse team in the league last year, but they had a strong preseason.  Add Afinogenov and good things are in the making.
21	Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod	N/A	—	Torpedo picks up Tim Brent from the Carolina Hurricanes, but not much otherwise.  They were better than Vityaz last year, but not sure the lockout guys leaving will be enough.
22	Dinamo Riga	N/A	—	Sandis Ozolins, Kyle Wilson and Marcel Hossa are all big time steps to get these guys out of the gutter.
23	Avtomobilist Yekaterinberg	N/A	—	Spirko left to Spartak, but they still need some help.  Will the returning roster be able to step up and compete?
24	Dinamo Minsk	N/A	—	Minsk lost some NHLers after the lockout, dropped some top scorers and refilled the team with Belarus league players.  Not a recipe for competitiveness.
25	Admiral Vladivostok	N/A	—	New expansion team went the expansion draft and young kids route in their inaugural season.  Could be competitive, but still a ways from the top.
26	Spartak Moscow	N/A	—	The Ruzicka loss is going to hurt a team that wasn’t very good last season anyway.  They won 2 of 3 games in the Moscow Mayor’s Cup, but that was preseason.  Maybe a mover, but not without improvement.
27	Amur Khabarovsk	N/A	—	Amur is trying their hand with VHL juniors and the signing of Dmitry Bykov.  Might end up better than here, but probably not by much.
28	Metallurg Novokuznetsk	N/A	—	Lost their top 11 scorers and filled in the holes with potential up and comers.  Definitely a rebuilding season for NK.