Vityaz vs Spartak. Should we expect effective play from teams?
The outsider of the Western Conference, Vityaz near Moscow, will host Spartak in the capital on September 14 at their home arena.
The management of the Moscow region club surprised many during the summer off-season by deciding to change the coaching staff. The decision not to renew the contract with Vyacheslav Butsaev looks doubly strange, taking into account last year’s results of Vityaz, who had his best season during his stay in the KHL. The figure of the new coach of the Moscow Region club looks controversial. Alexander Zavyalov has no experience of working independently as a head coach, having spent the last few seasons as an assistant at Torpedo, Amur, Neftekhimik, Traktor, Ak Bars and Vityaz.
So far, such management experiments have not brought the expected results. Vityaz failed at the start of the season, immediately dropping to the bottom of the Western Conference standings. Only two points scored out of ten possible, with one victory, gained in a shootout in a duel with Admiral. Four defeats, with the home fiasco in the match against Dynamo Minsk standing out, when Vityaz managed to lose with a score of 0-7. If the team does not start gaining points in the near future, then Zavyalov’s resignation will look like a logical solution to the current problem.
Spartak
The red-and-whites seriously rebooted after last year's failure, when the team literally fell out of the cup eight at the end of the regular season, ending up without the playoffs. Alexey Zhamnov, who won silver with the national team at the 2022 Olympic Games, was appointed head coach. The selection also passed with a plus sign. The ranks of the red and white were joined by such serious, by KHL standards, hockey players as Goldobin, Burmistrov, Poryadin, Tchaikovsky, Morozov. Just the other day, a one-year contract was signed with American defender Joey Keane, who became the team's best defender last season. The loss of Alexander Khokhlachev was quite unexpected; Spartak’s top scorer in the KHL just a few days before the start of the season moved to Khabarovsk Amur.
So far, Spartak's start in the current championship is causing mixed impressions. On the one hand, the team’s performance is encouraging (16 goals scored is the third result in the League, Goldobin is the championship’s top scorer with six goals scored), on the other hand, there are persistent problems in defense; in each of the four matches played, Spartak conceded at least three goals. At the moment, Spartak has two victories (over Severstal 6-4 and Amur 5-3), with two defeats (against Kunlun 3-4 and Admiral 2-6) and is currently in eighth place in the West.
Our Expert Predictions & Analysis on Vityaz vs Spartak
VityazThe management of the Moscow region club surprised many during the summer off-season by deciding to change the coaching staff. The decision not to renew the contract with Vyacheslav Butsaev looks doubly strange, taking into account last year’s results of Vityaz, who had his best season during his stay in the KHL. The figure of the new coach of the Moscow Region club looks controversial. Alexander Zavyalov has no experience of working independently as a head coach, having spent the last few seasons as an assistant at Torpedo, Amur, Neftekhimik, Traktor, Ak Bars and Vityaz.
So far, such management experiments have not brought the expected results. Vityaz failed at the start of the season, immediately dropping to the bottom of the Western Conference standings. Only two points scored out of ten possible, with one victory, gained in a shootout in a duel with Admiral. Four defeats, with the home fiasco in the match against Dynamo Minsk standing out, when Vityaz managed to lose with a score of 0-7. If the team does not start gaining points in the near future, then Zavyalov’s resignation will look like a logical solution to the current problem.
Spartak
The red-and-whites seriously rebooted after last year's failure, when the team literally fell out of the cup eight at the end of the regular season, ending up without the playoffs. Alexey Zhamnov, who won silver with the national team at the 2022 Olympic Games, was appointed head coach. The selection also passed with a plus sign. The ranks of the red and white were joined by such serious, by KHL standards, hockey players as Goldobin, Burmistrov, Poryadin, Tchaikovsky, Morozov. Just the other day, a one-year contract was signed with American defender Joey Keane, who became the team's best defender last season. The loss of Alexander Khokhlachev was quite unexpected; Spartak’s top scorer in the KHL just a few days before the start of the season moved to Khabarovsk Amur.
So far, Spartak's start in the current championship is causing mixed impressions. On the one hand, the team’s performance is encouraging (16 goals scored is the third result in the League, Goldobin is the championship’s top scorer with six goals scored), on the other hand, there are persistent problems in defense; in each of the four matches played, Spartak conceded at least three goals. At the moment, Spartak has two victories (over Severstal 6-4 and Amur 5-3), with two defeats (against Kunlun 3-4 and Admiral 2-6) and is currently in eighth place in the West.
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