There have been plenty of changes in the Omsk club by the start of the season. The team was left by 11 hockey players, including goalkeeper Norm Maracl, defenders Alexander Guskov and Igor Nikitin, strikers Dmitry Zatonsky, Oleg Belkin, Nikita Alekseev, Alexander Svitov and Andrey Nikolishin. The backbone, however, has been preserved. And there are few newcomers: former CSKA goalkeeper Alexander Fomichev (he signed a contract with hawks in the spring on the eve of the playoffs), Czech striker Pavel Rosa, national champion of Ak Bars defender Denis Denisov and forward of Novokuznetsk Metallurg Denis Tyurin, whose game the Avangard coaching staff closely watched last season.
Replenishment was very helpful and strengthened the problematic position. Especially Rosa and Tyurin. “We know the Czech striker by speaking for Dynamo, where he was a real leader,” commented head coach Valery Belousov. - The last season in Moscow, Pasha went wrong, and he had to finish it in Sweden. But we look forward to Rosa, in the offseason regularly played him in the first link. As for Tyurin, he is a young guy, he does not always have enough stability. I am glad that he began to score and received a call to the national team for the stage of the Eurotour. ”
With the introduction of the salary ceiling, the club refused the services of Sergei Mozyakin, Andrei Mukhachev and Sergei Gusev. For the same reason, they terminated the agreement with the North American goalkeeper Maracl, who spent one and a half years in Omsk. The Vanguard management considered it inappropriate to pay the national federation 4.5 million rubles for a foreign goalkeeper, as required by the new regulation. However, no one drove Maracl from the team. As the club management has repeatedly assured, the Canadian himself did not agree to the new conditions and is now looking for work in Germany.
“Vanguard” is not talked about the tasks for the season loudly. But the president of the “hawks” Konstantin Potapov has repeatedly emphasized that the new championship should perform no worse than the previous one. That is, at least to reach the final. “We always set the highest goals, in another way it’s simply not interesting,” Potapov remarked wisely. - We will fight for medals. There are a lot of young people in the team, everyone will have a chance to play. ”
The Wings, who have finally returned to the Super League, have other problems - financial ones. The team only on the eve of the Tuesday match gave a salary for the summer. Before that, hockey players played only for “honor” and “homeland,” which owed them a fair amount of debt. They played diligently, but no more: in both home games, Muscovites lost three goals to Neftekhimik and Ak Bars. “Vanguard” started, as befits one of the favorites, with a victory. Away “hawks”, largely thanks to two goals, abandoned in the minority, beat Lokomotiv - 3: 1.
If we ignore gains and losses, the main creative success of Belousov in the offseason is the creation of the shock of the first three Rosa - Chubarov - Kalyuzhny. Last season, the team during the regular season was in a fever due to the lack of a leader link. It stabilized only with the advent of Belkin's additional applications in the winter. Now everything is different: the tone in the game of “hawks”, as expected, is set by Chubarov’s link. And when he doesn’t succeed, the second three of the attacks come to the rescue. She remained unchanged: Novak - Gorovikov - Yachmenev. The main changes are in defense. Avangard has long accustomed three pairs of defenders to the game, but two of them have been virtually re-created: Koltsov, who loves to connect to the attack, has received reliable Denisov as his partner, the young Nikita Nikitin has turned from the seventh defender into the main one, Lyubushin got a stable place in the squad.
... The game against the Wings, as expected, began with powerful attacks by the hawks. Already at the 13th second Rosa on the left flank rolled out one on one with Dmitry Yachanov, but failed to outplay the experienced goalkeeper, who defended the colors of Ak Bars for several seasons. The moment turned out to be symbolic: in the first period, the strike unit of the “Vanguard” crushed the opponents' defense, throwing, it seemed, from everywhere. At first, the Muscovites did not keep pace with the fast master forwards and immediately got hold of two deletions, one of which was implemented by the stubborn Dew. Noticeably inferior to Omsk residents in the classroom, the guests still did not shade and already before the break they could answer with a goal, but twice they did not realize the numerical superiority of 5x3.
The second period turned out to be desperately interesting. The main judge Alexander Antropov, according to tradition, did not skimp on removal, the teams spent almost ten minutes in incomplete formulations. One could see Koltsov’s signature solo passages, which cheerfully performed the “stick — horse – stick” stunt, and the slaughter shot of young Kurbatov ... While Omsk amused themselves at the Krylia’s gates, the guests succeeded in a beautiful attack on the right flank. Forwards of the second link, Kulik and Eremin, “one-two-three” to get rid of the defense of the owners, and the last one sent a puck between the shields of Alexander Fomichev - 1: 1. Muscovites could come forward almost immediately, but this time the goalkeeper was impeccable. Omichi took this plot twist by surprise - they spent the end of the period in a complete stupor.
Only in the final third of the match did Vanguard lock the opponent in the zone seriously and permanently. But Koltsov did not beat Yachanov, being on the spot, Kalyuzhny missed the puck in an excellent position ... “Wings” played a draw, occasionally counterattacking. Moreover, their attacks were sometimes sharper than academic host attacks, which clearly lacked speed. The link of Yachmenev looked indistinct, the best forward of České Poyishtovna Anton Kuryanov remained in the shadow. The most interesting and even funny: Muscovites eventually managed to get on target more often than “hawks”. Here you have a debutant!
Avangard lost the first points of the season. "Wings," on the contrary, acquired them. And be more fortunate - they could have completely taken away the victory from Omsk.
Pavel KOPACHEV