The tournament started on February 25 and today, on March 2, the first round of the competition draws to a close. Let’s take a look at the achievements of the teams that, by the way, have already played 20 games each.
On top of that, there are player statistics broken down into three categories: points, goals, and assists.
Ledianye Voiny – 46 points.
The team, led by captain Dmitriy Gavrilovich, started this tournament phenomenally for themselves, taking top spot in the standings from the very first days. It’s worth recalling that the team missed out on the Christmas Cup. But in spite of that, the team have two trump cards, pulling them along like a locomotive. We’re talking about Dmitri Gavrilovich and Vadim Rybakov. The former, along with the Chetyre Ledokola, won the regular season and the playoffs of the Christmas Cup, picking up his own personal award for best player in the final, and Vadim has made a brilliant showing with the Shest’ Trolley and went on to promote himself to the Ledianye Voiny. The team itself runs like an expensive Swiss watch, there are some tactics in the game, especially the team uses the throw-in in the opponent’s half trying to win it by all means, and then passes to Gavrilovich who sends the puck towards the goal with his trademark shot.
2. Uralets – 40 points.
Having started playing in tournaments under the auspices of ISHF more than a year ago, the team from Kachkanar is always a leader both in regular championships and in playoffs. Led by Evgeniy Kostin, the team promotes attacking hockey with a high number of goals scored. In this tournament, the team received a quality reinforcement of their attacking line – Ilya Yadrenov joined the Ural team, who started to show his worth from day one, scoring 11 points in the first game day.
3. Shest’ Trolley – 32 points.
Having failed in the last tournament (the team scored 66 points in 70 games and finished in last place in the championship), in the first round the Trolls managed to get half of the points they earned in the previous tournament, although the first victory was not achieved until the second game day. It’s hard to single out anyone in the team – the squad, though young, is trying to act together and get the job done. The team captain is young Pavel Kutyakov, with Ivan Kechkin leading the attack. These are the names associated with the highest number of goals scored by the team in the tournament.
4. Armeets – 29 points.
The team from Balashikha has already accustomed their fans to the fact that their engine takes a very long time to warm up, and you have to wait for the team to get on a winning streak, and it will definitely get up. The Moscow Region team has the biggest entry list in the tournament, with 11 men. The team captain is still the same Gleb Miroshnikov, and he is assisted by Maxim Korobov, Maxim Repin, as well as Vasily Doronin, who moved from the Moskovskiy Eshelon. The team had a tough time of it, with their day off coming on the final day of every game round.
5. Moskovskiy Eshelon – 22 points.
The team at the time of this writing has clearly sagged, because the team from Moscow can’t win in regulation time for 7 games already. Almost 2 full game days (out of 5) without a sweet taste of victory after 30 minutes of playing time.
In this tournament Gleb Morulev, who made his short hockey debut in June 2021 for the Molotoboytsy, has become the team captain. During this time Gleb gained enough experience to become one of the leaders and was rewarded with a captain’s patch on one of the team’s jerseys.
6. Molotoboytsy – 11 points.
As you can tell from the number of points scored, the team is clearly riding on the wrong tiers when it comes to this tournament. The main problem for the team is their offense – only in 3 games out of 20 the team has scored more than 2 goals. But the light in the game is visible – near the end of the circle the team began to communicate on the ice, the players prompt each other, choosing the best possible vector for interaction. The team captain is Ilya Ostrovskiy, who has extensive experience playing short hockey, but has taken up the captaincy for the first time.
Now let’s talk about personalities. This tournament brought together some of the really strongest players. Each team has at least 2 players who are capable of solving the outcome of a match on their own. But we all remember that short hockey is a team game and it is important not only to score, but also to help your teammates reach the opponent’s goal.
Top 5 players in terms of points scored:
Anton Borko (Uralets) – 43 points
Dmitriy Gavrilovich (Ledianye Voiny) – 36 points
Vadim Rybakov (Ledianye Voiny) – 34 points
Ilya Yadrenov (Uralets) -29 points
Ivan Petin (Ledianye Voiny) – 28 points
Top 5 players in terms of goals scored:
Dmitriy Gavrilovich (Ledianye Voiny) – 19 goals
Ilya Yadrenov (Uralets) – 18
Ivan Petin (Ledianye Voiny) – 16
Vadim Rybakov (Ledianye Voiny) – 16
Evgeny Kostin (Uralets) – 15
Top 5 players in terms of assists given:
Anton Borko (Uralets) – 31 assists
Vadim Rybakov (Ledianye Voiny) – 18
Dmitriy Gavrilovich (Ledianye Voiny) – 17
Gleb Morulev (Moskovskiy Eshelon) – 14
Ivan Kechkin (Shest’ Trolley) -13