KHL Power Rankings – Weeks 5 & 6
We are about 1/5th of the way through the season and there is definitely some separation between the best and the worse clubs. We do have some surprises! Dinamo Riga has held their top spot and Donbass is continuing to play great as well. Lev Praha has fallen off their pace as of late, but they are still a solid playoff contender. Slovan Bratislava is nowhere near the form they were in last year and some big changes should be expected–maybe even midseason.
KHL Medvescak and their North American-based roster has finally hit full stride. Barry Brust tried to one up his AHL consecutive minutes without allowing a goal record,
The current Cheechoo is playing like the old Cheechoo. He is on pace for 35 goals. (Elliot/Flickr)
but that was stopped at just over 208 minutes. That included three full shutouts and he is now third all-time in the KHL for this category. Jonathan Cheechoo is now tied for the league lead in goals with nine. They killed 36 consecutive opposing team power plays and their new found power play is now ranked fourth in the league. They are tied with Donbass, which sets up a great match on Friday between these two clubs fighting for a top spot in the West.
I messed up my master rankings table, so I had to get rid of the trends column for this week (lesson learned). However, the best teams are still at the top and have been there all season. Medvescak and Metallurg Mg are on the rise. There are a bunch of mediocre teams swapping spots from the prior weeks. Amur and Dinamo Minsk are crawling out of the bottom a bit, but Slovan is still pretty bad.
Check out the rankings here!
Archives
Rankings based on games played through Tuesday, October 10th.
| Ranking | Logo | Club Name | Record (W-OTW/SOW-OTL/SOL-L) | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  | SKA St. Petersburg | 9-2-1-2 | They are a beatable team, but still the league's best. Offense is the name of their game and they can score in bunches. |
| 2 |  | Barys Astana | 9-1-0-2 | Though Barys has not scored 6+ goals in a game in a while, they are still good. Dawes has fell back to Earth a bit, but Bochanski and Zhailauov are still on fire. |
| 3 |  | Dynamo Moscow | 10-0-1-4 | The first team to 10 wins are on the heels of SKA and they can dominate. They are still the team to beat to get to the Gagarin Cup. |
| 4 |  | Ak Bars Kazan | 7-3-1-3 | Though just one point behind Barys in the East, Ak Bars has been quiet this year. They have seven wins and play a consistent game. |
| 5 |  | Dinamo Riga | 7-1-1-4 | Riga has also come back to Earth a bit, but they are one of the few teams with seven wins and are sitting pretty in the West's top tier. |
| 6 |  | Metallurg Magnitogorsk ON THE RISE | 7-2-0-3 | Seemingly from out of nowhere, Mg has the league leaders in Kovar (points, assists), Zaripov (goals) and Lee (d-men points). They now sit at number three in the East. |
| 7 |  | Donbass Donetsk | 7-2-0-5 | Third in the West is Donbass who live and die by Leighton's play between the pipes. He already has three shutouts. |
| 8 |  | Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod A TEAM TO WATCH | 7-0-2-4 | Torpedo went on a little run of their own and snuck into the number four spot in the East. The season looks promising after several bad ones in a row (and a bad start) |
| 9 |  | Sibir Novosibirsk | 6-1-1-4 | Sibir beat might SKA (not included in these rankings). They are riding Kosiknin's 95% save percentage, which helps them with their mediocre goal scoring. |
| 10 |  | Lev Praha | 5-2-2-4 | Lev had a promising start to the season, but are back where they were to end last season. The West is really competitive and they need to keep up to make it two straight playoff runs. |
| 11 |  | KHL Medvescak Zagreb ON THE RISE | 6-1-3-4 | Medvescak finally is playing like they were supposed to winning six in a row. Barry Brust tried to beat his AHL consecutive scoreless minutes record, but missed it by two games. He now has the third best mark in KHL history. |
| 12 |  | Spartak Moscow | 5-3-1-5 | Spartak has now fallen off and looks to be in a bit of trouble. Their leading scorer is defender Deron Quint, which is not a good sign. |
| 13 |  | Ugra Khanty-Mansiysk | 5-0-1-6 | Biryukov has been starting in goal, but Kunetsov is making a case. 1-1 and 2.0 GAA are pretty good. |
| 14 |  | Atlant Moscow Oblast ON THE RISE | 5-1-1-6 | Atlant has won three in a row, but lost to Ak Bars and Dinamo Moscow. Good work, but they are off pace of the league''s best teams. |
| 15 |  | Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk | 5-2-0-5 | In a weaker East, there upside goal differential can still get them a playoff spot. In the West, they would be 11 /14 |
| 16 |  | CSKA Moscow FALLING | 5-3-0-6 | CSKA is so bad that Sergei Federov (yeah that Sergei Federov) has hung up his suit and tie (team's GM) and is trying to make a comeback. Maybe he can reprise his relationship with Anna Kournikova too? |
| 17 |  | Lokomotiv Yaroslavl | 4-2-2-5 | Lokomotiv still has a great chance to be a good team this season, but they need some goals to back Sanford's stellar play. |
| 18 |  | Salavat Yuleav Ufa | 5-1-3-3 | Volkov and Koltsov are keeping this team competitive, but they also are going to need something more from others soon. |
| 19 |  | Vityaz Chekov | 5-0-2-7 | Vityaz causes other teams problems, but they cannot play an entire 60 minutes. They showed a lot of promise early, but they look like last year's club now. |
| 20 |  | Traktor Chelyabinsk | 4-1-1-5 | Traktor had an awful losing streak with three in a row, but only scoring one goal in those games. In the East, they are still in the playoff race with four wins. |
| 21 |  | Severstal Cherepovets | 3-1-2-7 | Severstal has the league's second worse scoring defense. None of their defenders have a positive plus/minus rating. |
| 22 |  | Admirals Vladivostok | 3-2-2-5 | Playing better than an expansion team, Admirals look better as of late, but this is a season for growing. No playoff hopes for this Far East team without some miracles. |
| 23 |  | Dinamo Minsk | 4-0-1-7 | Minsk is finally starting to pull it together and is out of the bottom spot. They will continue to surprise some teams thinking there is an easy game on the schedule with this group. |
| 24 |  | Amur Khabarovsk | 2-1-4-5 | Amur also moves out of the bottom spot, but they could be a lot better if they could just last through overtime. If they can improve in the extra period, they can make a late run at a playoff spot. |
| 25 |  | Avtomobilist Yekaterinberg | 2-2-1-8 | 22 goals in 13 games is not going to get a team very far (league worse). |
| 26 |  | Avangard Omsk | 2-1-1-9 | The league's worse scoring defense is in rebuilding mode (58 allowed). Lately, 19-year old Denis Kostin has been starting in goal, but he seems to be a little over his head right now. |
| 27 |  | Slovan Bratislava | 2-2-0-8 | They looked like they might have some promise after defeating Medvescak a couple of weeks back, but not much since. They still are good in the extra period like last year, but with eight losses they cannot make it through regulation. |
| 28 | Metallurg Novokuznetsk | 2-0-3-7 | The league's worse club has fallen hard. Their best scorer is also a defender (Martynov-7 points) which help explains their league low 22 goals scored. |
