Admiral Vladivostok Take Shape

New logo (nautical, with just a hint of savage feline)!!! (photo via Hockeynytt)

The new Vladivostok team has been busy acquiring things.  At last month's draft, they picked up some prospects.  They now have a head coach, in former Amur bench boss Hannu Jortikka.  And of course, after consulting with the fanbase, the club now has a name and a logo (see above).  Today, however, Admiral got down to the heavy business of getting themselves some on-ice talent for 2013-14.

Below the jump, we'll take a quick look at the results of today's expansion draft, and try to figure out if there were any diamonds to be found in the rough that was the unprotected players list.

Important 2013-14 KHL Dates (very much updated)

I've started the new calendar for the upcoming season, and I'll put a permalink to it in the upper right corner of the blog.  We don't have a lot of set dates yet for 2013-14, but I've included what I can, and will update things as we go along.  Unlike with last year's calendar, I'm not going to simply delete dates that have already gone past.  Rather, I'll link to stories about what happened with that particular event, as I've done with the prospects game and the draft.
Behold, the preliminary list of important dates!:

Dates	Event
May 25th	KHL Top Prospects Game, Donetsk.
May 26th	2013 KHL Junior Draft, Donetsk.
June 17th	KHL Expansion Draft for Admiral Vladivostok.
August 13th-17th	Nizhny Novgorod Governor's Cup (pre-season tournament involving Torpedo, Dynamo Moscow, Atlant, & Donbass)
August 26th-31st	Donbass Open Cup (pre-season tournament involving Donbass, Severstal, Torpedo, Neftekhimik, & Vladivostok)
September 4th	KHL regular season begins with Lokomotiv Cup game between Dynamo Moscow and Traktor Chelyabinsk
September 7th	No games scheduled in memory of Lokomotiv air disaster
November 2nd-12th	KHL November break; no games scheduled
November 7th-10th	Karjala Cup games (1st leg of Euro Hockey Tour) in Finland
December 9th-15th	IIHF Div. IB U20 Championships in Dumfries, UK (Includes Kazakhstan, Ukraine)
December 15th-21st	IIHF Div. IA U20 Championships in Sanok, Poland (includes Latvia, Belarus)
December 15th-21st	IIHF Div. IIA U20 Championships in Hungary (includes Croatia)
December 16th-24th	KHL December break; no games scheduled
December 19th-22nd	First Channel Cup games (2nd leg of Euro Hockey Tour) in Russia
December 26th-January 5th	IIHF World U20 Championships in Malmö, Sweden (includes Russia, Czech Republic, Slovakia)
January 11th	2014 KHL All-Star Game in Prague, Czech Republic
Janary 30th-February 25th	KHL Olympic break; no games scheduled
February 7th-23rd	2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia
March 3rd	KHL regular season ends
March 7th	KHL Conference Quarterfinals begin
March 20th	KHL Conference Semifinals begin
April 2nd	KHL Conference Finals begin
April 18th	KHL Gagarin Cup Finals begin
April 20th-26th	IIHF Div. IB World Championships in Kaunas, Lithuania (includes Croatia)
May 9th-25th	IIHF World Champhionships in Minsk, Belarus (includes Russia, Czech Rep., Slovakia, Belarus, Latvia, Kazakhstan)

KHL Draft Day 2013!

Photo via Photo-Club

Aaaaand, we're back, with a lovely and appropriate photo of a sunrise somewhere in Russia!  I think it is safe to say that we're officially into the 2013-14 KHL season at this point, as the fifth annual KHL junior draft was held today in Donetsk, Ukraine.  And there were some very interesting picks indeed, a few of which we'll take a look at below the jump!

And Then There Were 28

Hello, and welcome to the KHL! (photo via OHL Alumni Central)

And Zagreb is in!

As of late last week, it looked like the hockey fans of Vladivostok would be the sole beneficiaries of KHL expansion this time around, and that city's new team was duly announced on the weekend.  The yet-unnamed squad will play in a brand-new 7,000-seat arena, and Alexander Mogilny has signed on to be the club president.  Now, they will now be joined by a club at the other end of the KHL world, in the capital of Croatia.

More below the jump!

The KHL in 2013-14?

Picture via old-map.com

We are now fully into the end-game stage of the KHL's 2013-14 expansion process, which means that it might actually be safe to make a bit of a prediction.  Based on some reports that are kicking around this week, it looks like the league will add only one team for next season, and that team will be Slava Fetisov's project out in the Far East in Vladivostok.

Below the jump, we'll take a bit of a look at how the league might shape up with 27 teams next season!

All Done

Still the property of Dynamo Moscow!

And so, several hours ago, a backhand pass from Denis Kokarev bobbled its way past Deron Quint and Michael Garnett, and Alexei Tsvetkov, who had arrived unnoticed at the far post, put an abrupt end to the 2012-13 KHL season.  Dynamo Moscow retain the Gagarin Cup, and it was certainly a deserved victory in the final analysis.

Highlights and a couple of thoughts below the jump!

It's Dynamo Again!

Photo via the KHL

More on this later, but Dynamo Moscow have won their second consecutive Gagarin Cup.  Alexei Tsvetkov was the hero early in overtime of game 6, scoring the winner less than minute after Traktor had successfully killed off a penalty.

Congratulations to Dynamo Moscow!

Busy Days in Magnitogorsk

It looks like Paul Maurice will be elsewhere next year. (photo by Nick Cotsonika, via Yahoo! Sports Canada)

It may seem just a tad early to start fussing about next season in the KHL, given that the current one isn't done yet, but a couple of interesting dominoes have fallen with regards to Metallurg Magnitogorsk.  Metallurg's 2012-13 season must, I think, be counted as a bit of a disappointment in some ways.  On the one hand, the team finished a reputable seventh overall in the league, enjoyed the stunning if temporary return of hometown boy Evgeni Malkin, and saw Sergei Mozyakin destroy his competition in the scoring race.  On the other hand, for the first time in the KHL's five-year history, Metallurg failed to advance past the first round of the playoffs, losing out to Salavat Yulaev Ufa.  With that in mind, some changes could be expected, if not major ones.

More below the jump!

Gagarin Cup Finals, Finally

Valery Nichushkin may be pulling on a Russia jersey a bit sooner than Traktor Chelyabinsk fans would like.  (photo via The Farm Club)

Well.  Here we are, already two games deep into the 2012-13 Finals, and no mention of it on these pages!  Oh, end of the academic term, you are a harsh mistress.  Anyhoo, we shall do this in Homeric fashion, and begin in medias res.

More below the jump.

A Farewell to Chekhov?

Possibly soon to be feisty in a new city (photo via tumblr.com)

Amid all the wild speculation about incoming teams, much of it going on here, it's time to pause and take a quick look at a current KHL team that may be on the move.  That team is Vityaz Chekhov, and the place for which they are reportedly destined is, in a way, home.

More below the jump?  More below the jump.

Player Killed in Kazakhstan

Photo via Amur Khabarovsk

Very sad news out of Kazakhstan this afternoon.  Khabarovsk native and longtime Amur player Dmitri Uchaykin, pictured above, has died after a hit received during a game in the Kazakh league.  Uchaykin was playing for Ertis Pavlodar at the time.  He played parts of 11 seasons in the Amur organization, including a very brief spell in the KHL, and also saw time with Yugra Khanty-Mansiysk, Gazovik Tyumen, and Yermak Angarsk before joining his current team in 2010-11.

The tragedy is only magnified by this, from the article linked above:

Uchaykin leaves behind a pregnant wife and a young daughter.

RIP Dmitri. (Story from the Amur website)

Fun Game!

Well, I had a post all set up about this blog's namesake city, but I think we'll wait until tomorrow for that one.    The reason for the change of plans is in order to take a closer look at the highly entertaining Game 3 between SKA St. Petersburg and Dynamo Moscow, in the capital.  You may recall that last season Dynamo swept SKA at this stage of the playoffs... well, they're on the brink of doing the same thing again this year, and the way they got to 3-0 was definitely something to watch, including some superb hockey, a minor dollop of controversy, and some flat-out strangeness.

Exended highlights, with annotations, below the jump!