Lokomotiv: the Gagarin Cup final is just the beginning?: News

An experienced coach, high-quality youth and new leaders – KHL.ru talks about this Lokomotiv squad, for which the championship window has opened.

In the last match of the final, 14 pupils of the local hockey school appeared in Lokomotiv’s lineup, nine of them were born in Yaroslavl. Most of the team leaders are no more than 30 years old. This means that the current final is clearly not the last for Lokomotiv. What and who made up the puzzle that allowed Yaroslavl to reach the finals for the first time in 15 years?

Champion Coach

The main star of this Lokomotiv is the head coach Igor Nikitin. This is his second full season with the team. He came to Yaroslavl during the 2021/2022 championship, replacing Andrey Skabelka. A little unexpectedly, Nikitin’s most important task was not even staging the team’s game. The coach worked a lot on psychology: “We have young guys, experienced beginners with the psychology of a winner. And without it, you can build a fence, but you will never climb over it,” Nikitin said in the summer of 2023.

Players often talk about Nikitin the psychologist. “When we played with Metallurg last season, he put us all in one corner in the locker room, it was very crowded. And then Nikitin said: this is the only way we can win today, shoulder to shoulder. Such topics get into your head, you do everything to win,” said Maxim Berezkin in an interview with KHL.ru. Every Lokomotiv hockey player has quite a lot of such stories. Some people remember the reception with the locker room, others note the individual conversations between the coach and the players.

The work on psychology was quite long and painful. There were defeats at the end of matches, and 0:5 from CSKA in the seventh game of last year’s quarterfinals. Lokomotiv had to go through all this. But now, at crucial moments, Yaroslavl residents are dragged along by their students. Berezkin and Arthur Kayumov score in the decisive game in Omsk, Georgy Ivanov equalizes the score in the key match of the final. And there are many such examples. Local players have stopped hiding behind the backs of foreign players or imported leaders – and this is Nikitin’s main merit.

Isaev’s breakthrough

Before the 2024 Gagarin Cup, many experts predicted the Lokomotiv goalkeeper Daniil Isaev Playoff Most Valuable Player Award. He – like the whole team – was close to the main KHL trophies. Isaev’s progress in recent years is one of the most important things that happened to the Yaroslavl team. How the goalkeeper became the main goalkeeper in Lokomotiv deserves a separate story. This was the third game with CSKA in the playoffs of the 2021/2022 season. Isaev unexpectedly appeared at the last turn instead of Edward Pasquale, who unsuccessfully played the Moscow matches. “They told me not to worry and to play calmly. Of course, this didn’t help much then. There was quite a bit of shaking. When you play little, there is always jitters. The responsibility was great. Before the match I was very worried – to the point that I couldn’t eat anything. When I caught a couple of throws already in the game, I let him go. I entered the match and gained confidence,” Isaev recalled in an interview with KHL.ru.

Then Lokomotiv lost in the fourth overtime (2:3 OT). But the match was remembered not for this, but for Isaev’s magical play. Pasquale left the team in the summer, and his place was taken by Ivan Bocharov, who was supposed to become Lokomotiv’s main goalkeeper. At least that’s what everyone around thought. Everyone except Isaev. “You have to fight for a place in the squad, because everyone wants to play, and there is only one place in goal. I won’t hide the fact that Rashit Davydov spoke about the plan for dividing playing time between goalkeepers – we had to play plus or minus in half, but someone could have played more matches. We were talking here, of course, about Van. It was planned that he would play more,” said Isaev.

As a result, in the 2022/2023 regular season, Bocharov and Isaev played approximately equally, and in the playoffs, the latter became Lokomotiv’s uncontested goalkeeper. At the end of the championship, Isaev was among the top three goalkeepers in the KHL. Now ask any specialist – everyone will name Isaeva among the top goalkeepers. There really is a big goalkeeper growing up in Russia and Yaroslavl. And his contribution to the current Lokomotiv final is simply enormous.

Concrete defense led by Gernat

Lokomotiv surprised everyone last summer in terms of selection. The team strengthened the most problem-free line: defense. Titled ones arrived in Yaroslavl Alexey Bereglazov, which was supposed to add experience to the railway workers, as well as the Slovak Martin Gernat. The latter never played in the KHL. These people are often referred to as “a pig in a poke.” “As a defender, I have to be ready for high speeds, to play effectively in the corners and to play in tight spaces. I would say that the big difference between the KHL and Europe is the speed of the game,” Gernat told KHL.ru after moving to Lokomotiv.

From the first matches, the Slovak began to prove that high speeds and fighting in the corners are not a problem for him. Gernat is the personification of the ideal defender. Or almost perfect. Simply because he has no weak points. Let’s bend our fingers: Gernat is good at positional defense, fighting near the boards, knows how to catch an opponent with a power move, is strong in stick play, joins in attacks, is useful in the minority and in the majority. Nice soup set. Lokomotiv found a real diamond on the European market. There were fears that Gernat would get bored in a team without foreign players, but he fit into the team perfectly: “The guys greeted me very well. A lot of Lokomotiv players speak English, more than half of the team. There are also no problems with the staff in terms of communication. We communicate a lot with Sergei Andronov. The coaching staff also speaks English,” said Gernat. By the way, a Slovak can also communicate quite comfortably in Russian.

If Gernat is perhaps the best defender of Lokomotiv, then the key one should be called Alexandra Elesina. You won’t find his name on the list of top defensive scorers. The points scored are not the most important advantage of this player. Yaroslavets is a real warrior. Nikitin, after losing the first match of this playoffs to CSKA (0:4), said that in the playoffs they don’t play, they fight. Judging by Elesin’s performance two days later, he took this phrase literally. Lokomotiv started the match hard again, but it was the defender who brought the team to the fight. He scored and fought several times. This got Lokomotiv so excited that the Yaroslavl team took four matches in a row and defeated the champion.

New leaders of Lokomotiv

After the tragedy of 2011, foreign hockey players often became the leaders and faces of Lokomotiv. In Yaroslavl they still remember with warmth Max Talbo, Petri Kontiolu, Brandon Kozun, Curtis Sanford, Staffan Kronwall And Yakuba Nadladala. The talents from the Yaroslavl school looked at them a lot, learned something, but could never get out from behind their backs. With the arrival of Nikitin everything changed. Now Yaroslavl youth are capable of solving big problems themselves. And two players stand apart here.

“I would really like to spend it in my home club. It is very important for me. There are examples in sports of people who spend their entire career on one team and show loyalty to it. I would like to become one of those athletes. It delights and motivates,” shared his thoughts with KHL.ru Georgy Ivanov. Number 10 is a significant player for this Lokomotiv. He was born in Yaroslavl, went through all levels – from children’s school to the main team. Someone says that this is the future captain of Lokomotiv. Maybe. But he is already a person who leads the team and is not afraid to take responsibility. It was Ivanov who replaced the injured player in the final Maxim Shalunov. He went to the first link to see Berezkin and Kayumov – and he definitely wasn’t out of place there. Ivanov scored in the third game and also came close to sending the second game into overtime. His goal was canceled a second before the siren, but he definitely put the whole of Yaroslavl on edge. Teams are based on people like Ivanov. With his leadership qualities, the striker can glue the team together when necessary.

Georgy Ivanov: “I want to spend my entire career at Lokomotiv, this is important”

Interview

The second significant player for this team is Berezkin. The guy who came from Chita to Yaroslavl many years ago went through a difficult journey. He started last season in the VHL. Berezkin tore up this league, returned to Lokomotiv – and managed to gain a foothold in the first line with Kayumov and Shalunov. “I understood that I could calmly return. I also knew that I would get a lot of playing time, most of them. That’s how it all turned out. Molot coach Albert Loginov and club director Alexander Gulyavtsev liked me. They constantly encouraged me and celebrated my good actions. In the VHL I scored a lot and gave assists, and this gave me confidence. Nikolai Konstantinovich Borshchevsky was also in touch with me, saying what I added. Then Danya Tesanov was injured, I was returned to Lokomotiv,” Berezkin told the official KHL website. And now for almost two full seasons he has not left the top three of the top club. And Berezkin is only 22 years old.

During his time working with Nikitin, the striker managed to bring almost all of his skills to a high level: playing with the puck, shooting, ability to pass, pressing, endurance. According to Berezkin, you can trace the entire progress of Lokomotiv. He had a streak of more than 50 matches in the KHL without goals. And now he is one of the top scorers in the Gagarin Cup.

Berezkin is the person who is unlikely to calm down until he wins the Gagarin Cup. “We have everything for this. Perhaps there were problems in the head. But I think that with our coach the Gagarin Cup is more than possible. Everyone sees that Lokomotiv has enough strength and intelligence to win. There is no explanation for why we didn’t win before,” he said. After the fourth match of the final with Metallurg, Berezkin left Arena 2000 and was surrounded by fans who were chanting his name. The guy couldn’t hold back his tears. There is no doubt that it is these hockey players who will definitely bring the Gagarin Cup to Yaroslavl.

The third local player we can’t help but talk about is Kayumov. Yes, he was born in Tatarstan, but also went through the Lokomotiv school. Bringing a trophy to Yaroslavl is his dream. Several years ago, he already told the team’s fans that “sooner or later we will still take this cup.” This is probably why, during the playoffs, the striker extended his contract with Lokomotiv for three years at once. Kayumov, along with Isaev and Berezkin, deserved to become the most valuable player of the playoffs. It’s unlikely that anyone will oust him from Lokomotiv’s first line in the coming years. Kayumov, together with Berezkin, formed the brains of the team’s starting combination. Both are creative forwards who can play well without the puck. Their pressure on defenders in these playoffs is a separate form of art that is not ashamed to display in a museum.

Cool words can also be found for other young players who went through both school and the Lokomotiv youth team. Daniil But, Dmitry Simashev – this is both the immediate future of the team and the present. After all, both already decide the outcome of matches at the age of 18. Stepan Nikulin, Yaroslav Likhachev – a year ago they were arguing for the title of best rookie of the season in the KHL, and now they are playing in the finals.

What’s next?

The current achievement has only slightly opened the championship window for Lokomotiv. The club has everything for this: a strong coaching staff, experienced players, talented youth and an excellent club vertical with two schools and two youth teams. It is unlikely that anyone will be surprised if Nikitin and the company not only reach the final a year later, but also win it. “If they are satisfied that they were finalists, then that’s a problem. If it sucks in the pit of your stomach and shakes your heart, then no,” Nikitin said after the final.

There is a feeling that in this “Lokomotiv” there is hardly anyone who is satisfied with the very fact of being in the final.