Enter the dragon: Red Star style Beijing expansion team draws defending champs in KHL playoffs
32-year-old Finnish defenseman Janne Jalasvaara. The two top scorers are centers Chad Rau, an American, and Canadian Sean Collins. Russian Andrei Makarov and Finn Tomi Karhunen have provided spectacular goaltending.
Red Star’s homegrown contingent is led by 19-year-old Ying Rudi, the first Chinaborn player signed to a KHL contract. The 6-foot-1, 190pound center played youth hockey in Beijing before moving to Chicago at age nine.
Ukrainian forward Alexei Ponikarovsky, who won the Gagarin Cup with SKA St. Petersburg in 2015, is one of the leaders that Yurzinov will rely on to help settle the team’s playoff jitters.
The 36-year-old Ponikarovsky, who notched 323 points in 678 games in North America’s National Hockey League, doesn’t think nerves will be a problem — thanks in large part to the atmosphere in the dressing room.
“Like any successful team, it’s about that combination of having some pretty good players and a great attitude in the room,” he told the KHL website last week.
“We’re a friendly team. Even though we have players from all over the world and everybody speaks a different language, we all understand English.We’veformedacloseknit group. We want to play and win for each other.”
Rau, who led the team with 20 goals and 20 assists in the regular season, agrees.
“There’s a lot of depth on ourclubandI’vebeenluckyto
Even though we have players from all over the world and everybody speaks a different language, we all understand English ... We want to play and win for each other.”
play on a line with some good guys,” said the 29-year-old.
“The team as a whole has really come together, and once we started to win games it only got stronger.”
Speedy French forward Damien Fleury sustained a season-ending injury against Moscow Dynamo on Saturday, so Yurzinov will be forced to tweak his lineup for Metallburg.
Whatever he comes up with, Red Star’s biggest task will be shutting down Sergei Mozyakin, who sniped 48 goals — including 22 on the powerplay — and 85 points in the regular season.
The Russian roster also includes Canadian defenseman Chris Lee, who finished sixth in the scoring race with 14 goals and 65 points — two ahead of Mozyakin’s linemate, Jan Kovar.
Metallburg won both regular-season clashes: 5-1 in Shanghai on Oct 23 and 4-2 at home on Dec 10.
Game 2 in the quarterfinal goes on Friday night in Magnitogorsk before the series shifts to Beijing for games at LeSports Center on Sunday and Tuesday.