SKA Saint Petersburg went into the Belarusian capital seeking a bounce back victory after their road defeat to HC Sochi, which was owed largely to the performance of Philadelphia Flyers prospect (#7 overall, 2023 NHL Entry Draft) and loaned player from their roster Matvei Michkov (1 goal, 2 assists) and his line. Unfortunately, they were foiled yet again, as they fell 4-2 to Dinamo Minsk. SKA entered the first intermission with a 2-0 lead on the backs of goals by Vladimir Alistrov and Alex Galchenyuk (the latter on the power play) late into the first period. However, over the course of the ensuing two stanzas, they would surrender four unanswered goals, and would not be able to solve Dinamo goaltender Alexei Kolosov (another Flyers prospect, #78 overall, 2021 NHL Entry Draft), who would stop 45 of 47 shots faced on the day for a save percentage of .957. The final goal of the match was scored on a 5-on-3 advantage for Minsk, as Saint Petersburg had taken two penalties on one play, by RW Roman Gorbunov, who had earlier scored Riga’s first goal of the game. This was the embarrassing final nail in the coffin for a collapse of a game. Curiously, SKA RW Svyatoslav Grebenshchikov had gotten into a fight with LW Sergei Kuznetsov and seemed to have the upper hand/got the takedown, but if this did energize the team, it certainly did not make them focused or more disciplined. This was yet another game where SKA had the shots on goal advantage, with their aforementioned 47 SOG stacked up against Dinamo’s 28. They additionally had 10 of their shots blocked, in contrast with blocking 8 of Riga’s attempts, and had a slight advantage in time in the offensive zone, 14:56 to 14:31. Ultimately, poor defensive discipline, having gone two men down without much time remaining, and an inability to solve Kolosov were their undoing. This marks two consecutive defeats for Saint Petersburg, after a four-game win streak seemed to suggest that they had found their form as a group.

In the meantime, however, their goaltending situation had a significant upgrade. It was announced that Admiral Vladivostok terminated the contract of G Nikita Serebryakov, who was the 2023 recipient of the KHL’s Best Goalie Award. He subsequently signed a four-year deal with SKA Saint Petersburg, meaning that the team has a clear starter. To his credit, Artemy Pleshkov has performed quite well after being forced into a more intense role by the season’s earlier injury of touted offseason signing Johan Mattsson. Serebryakov, however, is on another level. In his award winning season last year, the ex-Saginaw Spirit (OHL) netminder posted a record of 20-20-9, with a SV% of .944 (league-best) and a GAA of 1.79 (second in the league behind only Lokomotiv Yaroslav’s Daniil Isayev), as he led Admiral to their first playoff berth since 2017 where they made it to Game 7 of the conference semifinals, falling to eventual Gagarin Cup finalists Ak Bars Kazan. In the postseason, Serebryakov posted a 1.95 GAA and a .945 SV%, continuing his impressive form from the regular season. To facilitate this deal, SKA has loaned out G Sergei Ivanov (Columbus Blue Jackets prospect, #138 overall, 2022) to Admiral for the remainder of the season, alongside LW Dmitri Buchelnikov (Detroit Red Wings, #52 overall, 2022). Additionally, Admiral have received cash compensation, alongside the KHL rights to Vegas Golden Knights D/RW Daniil Miromanov and will have C Nikita Anokhovsky joining the team. For complementary pieces to Serebryakov, SKA have received the KHL rights to RW Lee Chong-Hyun (currently playing in Hockeyettan, Sweden’s third tier, with Tranås AIF) and F Shoma Izumi (currently with the Yokohama Grits of the Asia League).

Additionally, Ivanov’s contract with SKA was terminated, and they have signed him to a new two-year deal which will keep him on their payroll until the end of the 2024-25 season. This is somewhat interesting, as it suggests that there is the possibility that Ivanov is striving to leave for North America to see how far he can go in the Columbus Blue Jackets system. This also lends credence to there being at least a vague possibility that Matvei Michkov could be granted a similar opportunity and leave for the Philadelphia Flyers as soon as possible as he promised after being drafted by them. It should be intriguing to watch how these developments unfold and what implications that they could have for other players who have draft rights retained by NHL teams.

Back on the ice, however, SKA will return to play and get back in the winning column in their next game against two-time defending Gagarin Cup champions CSKA Moscow on Friday, October 6th. Saint Petersburg is in a precarious spot at the moment, being ranked 10th in the Western Conference, 4th in the Bobrov Division (both of these only ahead of league-worst Vityaz Moscow Region), and 18th in the league/Continental Cup race. At the moment, based strictly off of form to this point by the group that they have put out and their place in the standings, their odds of defending last year’s Continental Cup win do not look great. However, the addition of the league’s best goalie with there still being plenty of season left to play could help them quite a bit. We will see just how much the addition of Serebryakov improves their performance and assists them in chasing glory. Head coach Roman Rotenberg’s group still has plenty of promise, and they just got significantly better with the addition of an elite presence between the pipes.