The Gagarin Cup will receive a new owner. CSKA, which had won the title for the last two years, unexpectedly failed loudly for everyone and was eliminated from the playoffs in the first round!
The army team had not finished so quickly for ten years. Remember how in the 2013/14 season CSKA “burnt out” SKA with a score of 0-4? In the current Gagarin Cup, the Muscovites were still able to take one game in the series against Yaroslavl's Lokomotiv. But this did not make CSKA’s fiasco any less loud.
Continental Hockey League (KHL)08 March 2024 • starts at 17:00Finished
LokomotivRussia6 : 3
CSKARussia
05:41 • Alexander Polunin (Andrey Sergeev, Rushan Rafikov)
08:58 • Alexander Elesin09:53 • Andrey Sergeev (Martin Gernat, Arthur Kayumov)
19:59 • Alexey Bereglazov (Georgy Ivanov)
24:15 • Ivan Chekhovich (Alexander Polunin, Pavel Kraskovsky)
36:49 • Maxim Shalunov (Artur Kayumov, Maxim Berezkin)
11:52 • Mikhail Grigorenko (Vladislav Provolnev)
13:17 • Vladislav Kamenev (Konstantin Okulov)
59:01 • Nikita Nesterov (Mikhail Grigorenko, Vladislav Kamenev)
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Literally everyone screamed about the impending failure of the capital's army team this season. During the regular season, the winners of the last two years performed extremely inconsistently. This applies to both the results and the game of Sergei Fedorov’s team — the regular season ended for the Muscovites in seventh place in the Western Conference table. It is symbolic that ten years ago CSKA also finished in the regular season outside the top 4 in the West.
However, with regard to the current army team, even after a terrible regular season, there was confidence that in the playoffs the “red-blues” would definitely return to the championship level, turn on the engine at full power and remind everyone of the killer instinct. After all, last season many thought that the Gagarin Cup would go to someone else, but then the army team amazed us with its impenetrability. The current season has shown that CSKA is still played not by robots, but by people who are characterized by fatigue and the presence of mistakes. Including fatal ones.
Even the notorious factor of a lucky opponent did not help the “red-blues”. CSKA beat Lokomotiv three seasons in a row. The “red-blues” also started the new series with a victory over what seemed like a convenient opponent. Four goals in Yaroslavl and Ivan Fedotov’s “cracker” at the start of the confrontation — after such an extravaganza, everyone again remembered the “railroad workers’” fear of CSKA. But these conversations eventually ceased to be relevant, and Igor Nikitin finally outplayed and destroyed his former club.
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Perhaps CSKA will become an ex-club for Sergei Fedorov. The leadership of the army organization is known for its ability to cut to the quick and get rid of trainers without giving them a second chance. Nikitin has already gone through this. Will a similar fate await Sergei Viktorovich, who lost a KHL playoff series for the first time in his coaching career? Today this is probably the main intrigue. It is obvious that a new era will come for Igor Esmantovich. Over the past five years, CSKA, under his presidency, has won three Gagarin Cups and has not been eliminated before the final stage of the tournament. Until today.