The former head coach of Avangard Omsk, Mikhail Kravets, spoke about his dismissal that occurred during the second round of the Kontinental Hockey League playoffs. His comments offer insight into the events for fans and analysts alike.
Kravets stated that his goal had been to secure a strong result with Avangard. He noted success in the regular season and expressed satisfaction with advancing past the first round. Yet he admitted that, as a person, he cannot explain what happened in the subsequent phase of the postseason.
Avangard dismissed the specialist on March 19. The following day, the club suffered a heavy defeat to Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, 0:7, in the second game of the Gagarin Cup quarter-finals. Sergei Zvyagin was appointed to interim duties, and on April 1 it was announced that he would take over as head coach.
Omsk reached the Gagarin Cup quarter-finals but were eliminated in a seven-game series by Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, ending their run in the tournament in that round.
Alongside Lokomotiv and Traktor, Metallurg and Avtomobilist are set to compete in the semi-finals. The first matchup is scheduled to begin on April 2, continuing the pursuit of hockey’s top prize in the league.
The current holder of the Gagarin Cup is CSKA. The team secured the title on its 100th anniversary, on April 29, 2023, defeating Ak Bars Kazan in a deciding seventh game of the final series. Both CSKA and Ak Bars were unable to defend the title this season and were eliminated in the first round of play.
There was a separate report about a previous attempt that led to the arrest of the president of the construction company responsible for the SKA Arena, linking organizational and administrative developments to the broader hockey landscape in the region.