The 2014–15 KHL season was the seventh season of the Kontinental Hockey League. The season started on 3 September with the Opening Cup between defending champions Metallurg Magnitogorsk and Dynamo Moscow, replacing Lev Praha, last year's runner up who did not participate this season.
Team changes Prior to the season, the KHL added three more teams: Jokerit from Helsinki, Lada Togliatti (an earlier member of the KHL that spent the last four seasons in the VHL) and HC Sochi, an expansion team from Sochi.
HC Donbass did not play in the league this season, due to the war in Donbas, which caused a devastating fire at their home arena. Donbass intended to rejoin KHL for the 2015–16 season, but ultimately joined the new Ukrainian Hockey Extra League. HC Lev Praha didn't participate in KHL this season either, because of financial problems. In addition, Spartak Moscow did not participate in the league this season, after missing the deadline for shoring up its finances.
Divisions and regular season format New for this season, is that the teams primarily play games against teams in their own division, and secondarily against teams in their own conference, and finally against teams in the other conference. According to the new format (subject to final approval by the League management) each team will play a total of 60 games during the regular season as follows:
24 games against the other teams in their division (two at home and two on the road against each opponent), 14 games (one at home and one on the road against each opponent), against the teams in the other division in their conference, 14 more against teams from the other conference (comprising seven home games versus teams from one division and seven road games against teams from the other), 8 games where four will be against teams in their own conference (two at home, two on the road) and four against opposition from the other conference (again, two at home and two on the road). When determining the opponents and venues for these additional 8 games, the League consider practical things, including the geographical locations and the availability of the arenas.
How the teams are divided into divisions and conferences are shown in the table below.
Western ConferenceEastern Conference
Bobrov Division Tarasov Division Kharlamov Division Chernyshev Division Jokerit Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod Ak Bars Kazan Admiral Vladivostok Dinamo Minsk CSKA Moscow Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg Amur Khabarovsk Dinamo Riga Dynamo Moscow Yugra Khanty-Mansiysk Avangard Omsk Atlant Moscow Oblast Lokomotiv Yaroslavl Metallurg Magnitogorsk Barys Astana Medveščak Zagreb Severstal Cherepovets Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk Metallurg Novokuznetsk SKA Saint Petersburg HC Sochi Lada Togliatti Salavat Yulaev Ufa Slovan Bratislava Vityaz Podolsk Traktor Chelyabinsk Sibir Novosibirsk
Regular season The regular season began on 3 September 2014 with the Opening Cup between Metallurg Magnitogorsk and Dynamo Moscow. Metallurg won the game 6–1.
Player statistics
Scoring leaders
GP = Games played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; +/– = P Plus–minus; PIM = Penalty minutes
Player Team GP G A Pts +/– PIM Alexander Radulov CSKA Moscow 46 24 47 71 +37 143 Jan KovářMetallurg Magnitogorsk 60 24 44 68 +15 50 Danis Zaripov Metallurg Magnitogorsk 60 24 40 64 +13 40 Stéphane Da Costa CSKA Moscow 46 30 32 62 +26 12 Artemy Panarin SKA Saint Petersburg 54 26 36 62 +18 37 Charles Linglet Dinamo Minsk 54 22 36 58 –2 59 Steve Moses Jokerit 60 36 21 57 +11 20 Matt Ellison Dinamo Minsk 58 24 33 57 –2 38 Nigel Dawes Barys Astana 60 32 24 56 +18 48 Denis Parshin Avangard Omsk 60 25 31 56 +18 40
Leading goaltenders
GP = Games played; Min = Minutes played; W = Wins; L = Losses; SOP = Shootouts played; GA = Goals against; SO = Shutouts; SV% = Save percentage; GAA = Goals against average
Player Team GP Min W L SOP GA SO SV% GAA Kevin Lalande CSKA Moscow 23 1297:10 16 3 2 30 6 .934 1.39 Alexander Lazushin Dynamo Moscow 21 1156:59 13 3 1 28 5 .946 1.45 Anders Nilsson Ak Bars Kazan 38 2247:52 20 9 8 64 5 .936 1.71 Emil Garipov Ak Bars Kazan 23 1383:26 16 5 2 41 1 .933 1.78 Stanislav Galimov CSKA Moscow 35 2055:31 23 5 5 61 6 .919 1.78
Russian Ice Hockey Championship
At the end of the regular season of the KHL Championship the following teams became medalists of the Russian Ice Hockey Championship:KHL Sports Regulations. Seasons 2014-2015, 2015-2016, 2016-2017 RankTeam CSKA Moscow SKA Saint Petersburg Dynamo Moscow
Playoffs
The playoffs started on February 27, 2015, with the top eight teams from each of the conferences and ended on April 19th with the last game of the Gagarin Cup final.
SKA Saint Petersburg won the trophy for the first time in its history after defeating Ak Bars Kazan in the final series. Before that, they won the conference final after trailing 0-3 against CSKA Moscow, which is the only reverse sweep in the history of the KHL.
Bracket
Final standings
RankTeam 1 SKA Saint Petersburg 2 Ak Bars Kazan 3 CSKA Moscow 4 Sibir Novosibirsk 5 Dynamo Moscow 6 Jokerit 7 Metallurg Magnitogorsk 8 Avangard Omsk 9 Dinamo Minsk 10 Lokomotiv Yaroslavl 11 Barys Astana 12 Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod 13 HC Sochi 14 Salavat Yulaev Ufa 15 Traktor Chelyabinsk 16 Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg 17 Atlant Moscow Oblast 18 Severstal Cherepovets 19 Admiral Vladivostok 20 Vityaz Podolsk 21 Dinamo Riga 22 Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk 23 Medveščak Zagreb 24 Lada Togliatti 25 Yugra Khanty-Mansiysk 26 Slovan Bratislava 27 Metallurg Novokuznetsk 28 Amur Khabarovsk
Awards
Players of the Month
Best KHL players of each month.
MonthGoaltenderDefenseForwardRookieSeptember Stanislav Galimov (CSKA Moscow) Anton Belov (SKA St. Petersburg) Sergei Shirokov (Avangard Omsk) Vladislav Kamenev (Metallurg Magnitogorsk)October Ivan Kasutin (Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod) Maxim Chudinov (SKA St. Petersburg) Artemy Panarin (SKA St. Petersburg) Ivan Nalimov (Admiral Vladivostok)November Mikko Koskinen (Sibir Novosibirsk) Georgi Misharin (CSKA Moscow) Igor Grigorenko (CSKA Moscow) Pavel Koledov (HC Sochi)December Michael Garnett (Traktor Chelyabinsk) Nick Bailen (Dinamo Minsk) Dmitri Kugryshev (Sibir Novosibirsk) Damir Musin (Ak Bars Kazan)January Alexander Lazushin (Dynamo Moscow) Alexei Semenov (Vityaz Podolsk) Mikhail Varnakov (Ak Bars Kazan) Vyacheslav Leshchenko (Atlant Moscow Oblast)February Anders Nilsson (Ak Bars Kazan) Deron Quint (Traktor Chelyabinsk) Charles Linglet (Dinamo Minsk) Maxim Mamin (CSKA Moscow)March Anders Nilsson (Ak Bars Kazan) Denis Denisov (CSKA Moscow) Alexander Radulov (CSKA Moscow) Kirill Semyonov (Avangard Omsk)April Mikko Koskinen (SKA St. Petersburg) Maxim Chudinov (SKA St. Petersburg) Evgenii Dadonov (SKA St. Petersburg) Not awarded
Milestones
On September 13, 2014, the Metallurg Magnitogorsk forward Sergei Mozyakin recorded his 400th KHL regular season career point. He became the first player in league history to reach this milestone. On September 24, 2014, the Metallurg Magnitogorsk forward Danis Zaripov recorded his 300th KHL regular season career point. He became the third player in league history to reach this milestone. On October 5, 2014, Ak Bars Kazan coach Zinetula Bilyaletdinov coached his 800th career game in Russian championships. On October 6, 2014, Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod forward Wojtek Wolski set a new league record for the fastest hat-trick in the game against Sibir Novosibirsk scoring in 1 minute 46 seconds. On February 18, 2015, Jokerit forward Steve Moses scored his 36th goal against Atlant Moscow Oblast and broke the league record for the most goals scored during one season.
References