2014–15 KHL season

2014–15 KHL season
League	Kontinental Hockey League
Sport	Ice hockey
Duration	3 September 2014 – 19 April 2015
Number of games	60
Number of teams	28
Regular season
Continental Cup winner	CSKA Moscow
Top scorer	Alexander Radulov
Playoffs
Western champions	SKA Saint Petersburg
Western runners-up	CSKA Moscow
Eastern champions	Ak Bars Kazan
Eastern runners-up	Sibir Novosibirsk
Gagarin Cup
Champions	SKA Saint Petersburg
Runners-up	Ak Bars Kazan

The 2014–15 KHL season was the seventh season of the Kontinental Hockey League. The season started on 3 September with the Opening Cup between defending champions Metallurg Magnitogorsk and Dynamo Moscow, replacing Lev Praha, last year's runner up who did not participate this season.

Team changes

Prior to the season, the KHL added three more teams: Jokerit from Helsinki, Lada Togliatti (an earlier member of the KHL that spent the last four seasons in the VHL) and HC Sochi, an expansion team from Sochi.

HC Donbass did not play in the league this season, due to Russian invasion of Ukraine which culminated in a devastating fire at their home arena. Donbass intended to rejoin KHL for the 2015–16 season, but ultimately joined the new Ukrainian Hockey Extra League. HC Lev Praha didn't participate in KHL this season either, because of financial problems. In addition, Spartak Moscow did not participate in the league this season, after missing the deadline for shoring up its finances.

Divisions and regular season format

New for this season, is that the teams primarily play games against teams in their own division, and secondarily against teams in their own conference, and finally against teams in the other conference. According to the new format (subject to final approval by the League management) each team will play a total of 60 games during the regular season as follows:

• 24 games against the other teams in their division (two at home and two on the road against each opponent),
• 14 games (one at home and one on the road against each opponent), against the teams in the other division in their conference,
• 14 more against teams from the other conference (comprising seven home games versus teams from one division and seven road games against teams from the other),
• 8 games where four will be against teams in their own conference (two at home, two on the road) and four against opposition from the other conference (again, two at home and two on the road). When determining the opponents and venues for these additional 8 games, the League consider practical things, including the geographical locations and the availability of the arenas.

How the teams are divided into divisions and conferences are shown in the table below.

Western Conference	Eastern Conference

Bobrov Division	Tarasov Division	Kharlamov Division	Chernyshev Division
Jokerit	Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod	Ak Bars Kazan	Admiral Vladivostok
Dinamo Minsk	CSKA Moscow	Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg	Amur Khabarovsk
Dinamo Riga	Dynamo Moscow	Yugra Khanty-Mansiysk	Avangard Omsk
Atlant Moscow Oblast	Lokomotiv Yaroslavl	Metallurg Magnitogorsk	Barys Astana
Medveščak Zagreb	Severstal Cherepovets	Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk	Metallurg Novokuznetsk
SKA Saint Petersburg	HC Sochi	Lada Togliatti	Salavat Yulaev Ufa
Slovan Bratislava	Vityaz Podolsk	Traktor Chelyabinsk	Sibir Novosibirsk

Regular season

The regular season began on 3 September 2014 with the Opening Cup between Metallurg Magnitogorsk and Dynamo Moscow. Metallurg won the game 6–1.

Player statistics

Scoring leaders

GP = Games played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; +/– = P Plus–minus; PIM = Penalty minutes

As of 24 Feb 2015

Player	Team	GP	G	A	Pts	+/–	PIM
Alexander Radulov	CSKA Moscow	46	24	47	71	+37	143
Jan Kovář	Metallurg Magnitogorsk	60	24	44	68	+15	50
Danis Zaripov	Metallurg Magnitogorsk	60	24	40	64	+13	40
Stéphane Da Costa	CSKA Moscow	46	30	32	62	+26	12
Artemy Panarin	SKA Saint Petersburg	54	26	36	62	+18	37
Charles Linglet	Dinamo Minsk	54	22	36	58	–2	59
Steve Moses	Jokerit	60	36	21	57	+11	20
Matt Ellison	Dinamo Minsk	58	24	33	57	–2	38
Nigel Dawes	Barys Astana	60	32	24	56	+18	48
Denis Parshin	Avangard Omsk	60	25	31	56	+18	40

Leading goaltenders

GP = Games played; Min = Minutes played; W = Wins; L = Losses; SOP = Shootouts played; GA = Goals against; SO = Shutouts; SV% = Save percentage; GAA = Goals against average

As of 24 Feb 2015

Player	Team	GP	Min	W	L	SOP	GA	SO	SV%	GAA
Kevin Lalande	CSKA Moscow	23	1297:10	16	3	2	30	6	.934	1.39
Alexander Lazushin	Dynamo Moscow	21	1156:59	13	3	1	28	5	.946	1.45
Anders Nilsson	Ak Bars Kazan	38	2247:52	20	9	8	64	5	.936	1.71
Emil Garipov	Ak Bars Kazan	23	1383:26	16	5	2	41	1	.933	1.78
Stanislav Galimov	CSKA Moscow	35	2055:31	23	5	5	61	6	.919	1.78

Russian Ice Hockey Championship

At the end of the regular season of the KHL Championship the following teams became medalists of the Russian Ice Hockey Championship:

Rank	Team
	CSKA Moscow
	SKA Saint Petersburg
	Dynamo Moscow

Playoffs

Main article: 2015 Gagarin Cup playoffs

Gagarin Cup

The playoffs started on February 27, 2015, with the top eight teams from each of the conferences and will end with the last game of the Gagarin Cup final.

Bracket

	Conference Quarterfinals					Conference Semifinals					Conference Finals					Gagarin Cup Finals
	1	Ak Bars	4
	8	Avtomobilist	1
						1	Ak Bars	4
						4	Avangard	1
	2	Sibir	4
	7	Traktor	2
											1	Ak Bars	4
	Eastern Conference
											2	Sibir	1
	3	Metallurg Mg	4
	6	Salavat Yulaev	1
						2	Sibir	4
						3	Metallurg Mg	1
	4	Avangard	4
	5	Barys	3
																1	Ak Bars	1
																2	SKA	4
	1	CSKA	4
	8	HC Sochi	0
						1	CSKA	4
						4	Jokerit	1
	2	SKA	4
	7	Torpedo	1
											1	CSKA	3
	Western Conference
											2	SKA	4
	3	Dynamo Msk	4
	6	Lokomotiv	2
						2	SKA	4
						3	Dynamo Msk	1
	4	Jokerit	4
	5	Dinamo Mn	1

Final standings

Rank	Team
1	SKA Saint Petersburg
2	Ak Bars Kazan
3	CSKA Moscow
4	Sibir Novosibirsk
5	Dynamo Moscow
6	Jokerit
7	Metallurg Magnitogorsk
8	Avangard Omsk
9	Dinamo Minsk
10	Lokomotiv Yaroslavl
11	Barys Astana
12	Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod
13	HC Sochi
14	Salavat Yulaev Ufa
15	Traktor Chelyabinsk
16	Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg
17	Atlant Moscow Oblast
18	Severstal Cherepovets
19	Admiral Vladivostok
20	Vityaz Podolsk
21	Dinamo Riga
22	Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk
23	Medveščak Zagreb
24	Lada Togliatti
25	Yugra Khanty-Mansiysk
26	Slovan Bratislava
27	Metallurg Novokuznetsk
28	Amur Khabarovsk

Awards

Players of the Month

Best KHL players of each month.

Month	Goaltender	Defense	Forward	Rookie
September	Stanislav Galimov (CSKA Moscow)	Anton Belov (SKA St. Petersburg)	Sergei Shirokov (Avangard Omsk)	Vladislav Kamenev (Metallurg Magnitogorsk)
October	Ivan Kasutin (Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod)	Maxim Chudinov (SKA St. Petersburg)	Artemy Panarin (SKA St. Petersburg)	Ivan Nalimov (Admiral Vladivostok)
November	Mikko Koskinen (Sibir Novosibirsk)	Georgi Misharin (CSKA Moscow)	Igor Grigorenko (CSKA Moscow)	Pavel Koledov (HC Sochi)
December	Michael Garnett (Traktor Chelyabinsk)	Nick Bailen (Dinamo Minsk)	Dmitri Kugryshev (Sibir Novosibirsk)	Damir Musin (Ak Bars Kazan)
January	Alexander Lazushin (Dynamo Moscow)	Alexei Semenov (Vityaz Podolsk)	Mikhail Varnakov (Ak Bars Kazan)	Vyacheslav Leshchenko (Atlant Moscow Oblast)
February	Anders Nilsson (Ak Bars Kazan)	Deron Quint (Traktor Chelyabinsk)	Charles Linglet (Dinamo Minsk)	Maxim Mamin (CSKA Moscow)
March	Anders Nilsson (Ak Bars Kazan)	Denis Denisov (CSKA Moscow)	Alexander Radulov (CSKA Moscow)	Kirill Semyonov (Avangard Omsk)
April	Mikko Koskinen (SKA St. Petersburg)	Maxim Chudinov (SKA St. Petersburg)	Evgenii Dadonov (SKA St. Petersburg)	Not awarded

Milestones

• On September 13, 2014, the Metallurg Magnitogorsk forward Sergei Mozyakin recorded his 400th KHL regular season career point. He became the first player in league history to reach this milestone.
• On September 24, 2014, the Metallurg Magnitogorsk forward Danis Zaripov recorded his 300th KHL regular season career point. He became the third player in league history to reach this milestone.
• On October 5, 2014, Ak Bars Kazan coach Zinetula Bilyaletdinov coached his 800th career game in Russian championships.
• On October 6, 2014, Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod forward Wojtek Wolski set a new league record for the fastest hat-trick in the game against Sibir Novosibirsk scoring in 1 minute 46 seconds.
• On February 18, 2015, Jokerit forward Steve Moses scored his 36th goal against Atlant Moscow Oblast and broke the league record for the most goals scored during one season.