This past spring saw some good news – sort of – for Lokomotiv Yarovslavl. The club from the banks upper Volga, best known for the tragedy of September 7th, 2011, made its return to the Gagarin Cup Finals for the first time since the KHL’s inaugural season of 2008-09. On that earlier occasion Lokomotiv were beaten in seven games by Ak Bars Kazan. The 2023-24 season saw them swept in the Finals, this time by Metallurg Magnitogorsk. However, though it ended in tears, the season represented an important step forward for a club that has always been there on the fringe of the league’s elite.
And Lokomotiv have kept the ol’ momentum going in the early stages of 2024-25 (obligatory reminder here that the stages are very very early indeed). The off-season saw some big veteran names (forwards Yegor Averin and Sergei Andronov) depart the team, but the cruel fact of the matter is that their loss hurts more on the sentimental side than in terms of any contribution to the scoring. In came former NHL-AHL journeyman Byron Froese, who has posted five points in 14 games. Lokomotiv also signed Alexander Radulov, coming off a vaguely unsatisfactory but still productive couple of seasons at Ak Brs. “Rads,” now 38 and third in the KHL in career points, has scored 5-4-9 in 14 games, which will do. Among the key returning players for Lokomotiv is the KHL’s reigning Goalie of the Year, Daniil Isayev, who is slightly off his spectacular pace of the last couple of seasons, but still posting a very nice .922 SV% through 11 appearances (all number current through October 10th). The net result is that Lokomotiv are atop the West Conference and the league itself, with an 11-3 record.
Also key to Lokomotiv’s successes of the past couple of seasons have been a couple of players with long-standing connections to the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers. Towering Slovak defenceman Martin Gernát, the Oilers’ fifth-round draft pick in 2011, made his KHL debut last season at the age of 31 after a couple of successful campaigns in Switzerland. And he found the Russian circuit to his liking, leading Lokomotiv in points by d-men and finishing in the KHL’s top ten in that category (84gp, 13-23-36). Gernát is off to a good start to the current season, once again leading Lokomotiv’s blueline group in points (he has 10 in 14 games) and comfortably in the KHL’s top ten once again.
Nine years after they drafted Gernát, the Oilers took forward Maxim Beryozkin in the fifth round in 2020. Beryozkin is now 22, and his path to steady KHL employment has been a bit slow. But he spent the entire 2023-24 season in the big league, his first season without time in the minors or the junior league. Although his regular-season scoring line was modest in 2023-24 (62 GP, 8-22-30), he broke out in the playoffs this past spring , posting 16 points in 20 games to lead Lokomotiv in post-season scoring. And he’s leading the team in points once again in the early stages of this current season, with a line of 4-7-11 in 14 games.
I repeat here that matters are at the very early stages of 2024-25, and there is a lot of ground still to cover. But Lokomotiv Yaroslavl’s deep playoff run last season looks like no fluke at all, and we can only wait eagerly to see if they have another such story to tell – possibly with a happier ending – this time around.
Patrick Conway is a writer based in Peterborough, Ontario. He previously covered Russian hockey at the Conway’s Russian Hockey blog, and he still keeps an eye on goings-on in that area.
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