Lok Yaroslavl - Building new

[redrobert81]

Hello, my name is Robert Straif and i have made it my task to bring Lokomotiv Yaroslavl again to the top. I took over the team in 3rd level of the Kontinental Hockey League. 3rd level of KHL? Yes it is a fantasy story with fantasy leagues.

Leagues:
North America: as in the original DB

Baltic League (Teams from LAT, EST, LIT and ARM)
Belarussian League (Teams from BLR, UKR, KAZ)
KHL 1+2+3 (Kontinental Hockey Teams filled up with all the russian teams)
French Magnus League
Italian League
British National League
Austrian Erste Bank Liga
Deutsche Eishockey Liga (German and swiss teams, a few austrian low-level teams in 2nd division, which is not simulated)
Scandinavian Elitserien and Allsvenskan (SWE, FIN, NOR, DAN)
Benelux League (BEL, NED, LUX, BUL, HUN)
Slovenian Elite League (SLO, CRO, SRB)
Australien League (SAF, MEX, AUS, NZE)
Asian Elite League (PRK, JAP, CHN, SKR)
Czechoslovakian League (CZE, SVK)

So we took over Lokomotiv Yaroslavl in KHL level 3. There are just 8 rather bad players on the roster. The only rather good one is 22 year old right defender Andrei Konev. So first job will be signing of a lot of players. We have PLENTY of budget for our task.

[redrobert81]

Having a well known name behind you looks like a good asset for bringing in good players. Quite a few of the players i wanted from the UFA list i got, among them Richard Zednik and Martin Prusek. Aging, but still rather good i guess. I also bought a few players from other clubs with Steve Saviano and Sebastien Caron being the big names there.

After the trainingcamp our lineups look like this:

Zednik - Epanchintsev - Saviano
Dorofeev - Golubovsky

Bedernikov - Mikhnov - Khlebnikov
Alekseev - Pakhomov

Safronov - Gutov - Varlamov
Krikunov - Konev

Kolachik - Semenov - Shinkar
Beltyukov - Mikhailishin

Caron - Prusek

We were rated 3rd best team in the league by the media ... which i can't really believe, but we will see. Defense is still a little weak, but i am rather happy with the goalies i could acquire.

[redrobert81]

Best players of the league:

Today were anounced the best players of the league

Goalies

1. Ivan Kasutin
2. Vitali Evdokimov
3. Daniil Alistratov
7. Sebastien Caron

Defenders

1. Aleksei Troshchinsky
2. Aleksandr Sazonov
3. Mikhail Chernov
6. Vladimir Malevich
9. Yan Golubovsky

Left Wing

1. Ruslan Khasanshin
2. Steve Saviano
3. Roman Voloshenko

Center

1. Vadim Epanchintsev
2. Aleksandr Romanov
3. Aleksandr Gutov

Right Wing

1. Sergei Arekaev
2. Mikhail Anisin
3. Sergei Varlamov

So the probably best known player of our team is not in the best players rating ... Richard Zednik

[redrobert81]

1st January 2012

For new year we will make a little summary. As expected we are on the top of our division, 2nd in the Kontinental Superleague. It looks clear we have our strength in the offense, as our goalies have problems putting up great numbers. 3 Players are constantly absent due to national team honours: Varlamov and Mikhnov with Ukraine and Saviano with Italy. We are proud to have them on our team nevertheless.

Team leaders:

Goalie: Martin Prusek with 90.6 % saves (3rd) - Leader: Ivan Kasutin - 94.6 % saves
Points: Vadim Epanchintsev with 22 points (6th) - Leader: Maksim Orlov - 25 points
Goals: Steve Saviano with 10 goals (7th) - Leader: Darren Lynch - 14 goals
Assists: Vadim Epanchintsev with 14 assists (4th) - Leader: Maksim Orlov - 19 assists
Bodycheck: Aleksandr Stepanov with 94 checks (2nd) - Leader: Dmitri Filimonov - 145 checks (!)
Leading Rookie: none - Leader: Taneli Jaatinen - 0 + 3 = 3 Points

Leading Farm Scorer: Vladimir Krikunov - 5 + 10 = 15 points
Leading Junior Scorer: Igor Ishaev - 7 + 10 = 17 points

[redrobert81]

As expected we won our division and are now one of the top teams in the playoffs. First round against Vityaz Checkov will be not very easy though

[redrobert81]

It was close, very close. Although it looked long like a sweet

Game1 Home: 4-2
Game2 Away: 6-1
Game3 Home: 2-3 (2nd OT)
Game4: Away: 2-4
Game5: Home: 2-1

Leading Scorer: Vadim Epanchintsev - 5 games, 3 goals, 4 assists

Next round is against Kristall Saratov

[redrobert81]

We knew Kristall Saratov from the long league .... so we were very positive that we can beat them:

Game 1 Away:

A solid 3-1 win

Game 2 Home:

1-0 Win ... the Winnig goal at 97:14 ... pretty hard game and Sebastien Caron with 49 saves

Game 3 Away:

2-1 Win ... Final goal by Epanchintsev of a pass of Zednik just 1 minute before the end

Now the Group for promotion consists of:

Rubin Tyumen
HC Lev Poprad
Lada Togliatti
Lokomotiv Yaroslavl

I would say everything is possible

[redrobert81]

We made it !!!!

Finally we got the promotion we were looking for ... but it was close once more

Game1 away against Rubin Tyumen: 1-4
Game2 home against Lada Togliatti: 5-2
Game3 away against Lev Poprad: 3-3
Game4 home against Rubin Tyumen: 0-7
Game5 away against Lada Togliatti: 8-1
Game6 home against Lev Poprad: 2-3

So 2 wins were barely enough to promote

In regular season our top guys were:

66 Epanchintsev, Vadim 34 9 23 32 5 14 68 13.2 7.97
25 Bedernikov, Aleksandr 31 17 10 27 0 19 70 24.3 6.58
5 Dorofeev, Sergei 34 7 15 22 16 18 69 10.1 7.44

[redrobert81]

Award celebration:

Player of the year: Ivan Kasutin - Neftyanik Almetievsk
Rookie of the year: Niko Kontkanen - Toros Neftekamsk
Coach of the year: Grigori Balashov - Rubin Tyumin
Defenseman of the year: James Laux - HK Ryazan
Forward of the year: Igor Safonov - HK Ryazan
Goaltender of the year: Ivan Kasutin - Neftyanik Almetievsk
Leading Scorer: André Hult - Donbass Donetsk

[redrobert81]

Who won the leagues? here is a little overview of season 2011/2012

AHL - Charlotte Checkers
DEL - SC Bern
Czechoslovakian League - HC Ocelari Trinec
Scandinavian League - HIFK Helsinki
KHL - Salavat Yulaev Ufa
NHL - Detroit Red Wings

World Champion: Russia beating USA in the finals
U-20 WC: Canada beating Finland in the finals

NHL Draft Picks:
#1 Nail Yakupov - Toronto Maple Leafs
#2 Ryan Murray - Minnesota Wild
#3 Derrick Pouliot - Ottawa Senators

[redrobert81]

For the new league we got us some new players .. although not as many and as good players as we wanted ... these are the new ones:

D Mikhail Pashnin
D Andrei Plekhanov
W Eric Nystrom
W Oleg Saprykin
W Roman Voloshenko
W Mattias Wennerberg

Saprykin is the only top class player we got, though the others are pretty solid as well

After the training camp we are deciding our lines as this:

Saprykin - Epanchintsev - Nystrom
Kadeykin - Dorofeev

Zednik - Mikhnov - Bedernikov
Alekseev - Plekhanov

Safronov - Gutov - Wennerberg
Malevich - Golubovsky

Voloshenko - Stepanov - Saviano
Beltyukov - Pashnin

Caron - Prusek

[redrobert81]

1st January 2013

For new year we will make a little summary. It is a hard season after promotion for us but new year we sit on playe 7 with a 12-13-5 record which isn't too bad. We have lots of shots but don't seem to score often enough. Well we have had a lot of injuries as well.

Team leaders:

Goalie: Sebastian Caron with 90.8 % saves (9th) - Leader: Bernd Brückler - 94.0 % saves
Points: Oleg Saprykin with 20 points (14th) - Leader: Maksim Korobov - 36 points
Goals: Oleg Saprykin with 14 goals (4th) - Leader: Denis Yachmenev - 18 goals
Assists: Vadim Epanchintsev with 18 assists (4th) - Leader: Sergey Sevostyanov - 23 assists
Bodycheck: Alexei Mikhnov with 81 checks (20th) - Leader: Janis Sprukts - 134 checks
Leading Rookie: none - Leader: Jani Lajunen - 1 + 8 = 9 Points

Leading Farm Scorer: Alexei Shamin - 9 + 6 = 15 points
Leading Junior Scorer: Maksim Buturlin - 1 + 1 = 2 points

[redrobert81]

With a nice finish we finished 6th in the league with a record of 20-17-7. First round in the playoffs will be against 3rd placed Khimik Voskresensk against whom we won three games in regular season and only lost one. So we might make a surprise here. Let's hope everything goes like we want it

[redrobert81]

We were strong enough ... but it was a close clash

Game 1: 2-1 win in OT
Game 2: 3-2 win in OT
Game 3: 1-3 loss
Game 4: 1-2 loss
Game 5: 1-3 loss

So we wil continue with the playouts. The opponents are Dinamo Riga against which we won and lost 2 games each ... pretty close again

[redrobert81]

And we made it quite comfortably ...

Game 1: 4-0
Game 2: 1-3
Game 3: 5-2
Game 4: 2-0