Update Post: November 28, 2023 11:01 pm
SKA, after a series of five defeats in a row, began its way back to the top, winning three matches. However, this was not enough for the team. The St. Petersburg team urgently needed a new strong goalkeeper. And they found him in the Far East immediately after a victorious match against a local team. Nikita Serebryakov, although not young, turned out to be a real discovery of the last regular season. The “Admiral”, who played defensively, was happy and his goalkeeper became almost the main hero of the last regular season.
SKA is at the bottom. What is happening with the great one from Saint Petersburg?
True, at the beginning of the current season the goalkeeper is not so effective: the reliability percentage fell from 94.39% to 92.02%. There aren’t many games left yet, so it’s too early to draw conclusions. However, we will never know if last season was a bright spot in his performance or if we have a new great goalkeeper. The fact is that playing in the KHL for an outsider and a great are completely different things.
Johan Mattsson was scheduled to be the main goalkeeper of the St. Petersburg team this season, but the Swede was injured, so SKA decided to act in a way that fans of other clubs do not like very much: not to look for internal reserves. , but simply to elect one of the leaders of a more modest team. Apparently, Sergei Ivanov will go to admiral. He is a young and apparently promising goalkeeper, but right now it is ridiculous to call him an equivalent replacement for Serebryakov.
Photo source: RIA Novosti
It is strange why Roman Rotenberg did not give the opportunity to continue playing to 20-year-old Artemy Pleshkov, who showed himself very well in the last matches. What were the objective reasons for worrying and quickly trying to arrange a trade for one of last season’s best goalkeepers? It’s clear the 27-year-old rookie has a lot more experience, but does the team really need him that much?
CSKA St. Petersburg has scored more than a couple of goals in a night’s game only twice in its last seven games, so it would be more logical to focus on the problems ahead. Previously we talked in more detail about the difficulties that the club faced at the beginning of the season.
There is a high probability that now he himself or the young Pleshkov will simply wither due to the fact that they do not receive enough confidence and playing time. Someone will probably be dissatisfied in the end. And with Mattsson’s return to action, the situation will become even more complicated, because what’s the point of keeping an expensive foreign player, whose limit has become stricter, off the ice?
Serebryakov can be praised for his determination, because he probably travels to St. Petersburg with the idea of becoming number one. But how many promising and talented hockey players has the SKA chewed up, spit out and forgotten? I wouldn’t want Nikita to join them. In the last five years, a dozen goalkeepers have passed through the club’s doors. The turnover in this position at SKA is simply scandalous. It’s hard not to notice that management doesn’t give goalkeepers a second chance. Some, frankly, did not even fully understand this word.
Photo source: RIA Novosti
A high-profile trade risks failure on all sides. “Almirante” has lost its most important player, without whom we can forget about repeating last year’s quality season. SKA is trying to cover the hole with a patch, but it appears to be missing where the hole opens. And the goalkeeper himself will have to urgently get used to a completely different playing style of the new club.
The conditions of the exchange of goalkeeper Admiral Serebryakov for SKA are known
It seems that everything will depend on Serebryakov’s ability to quickly go from playing for an outsider, when he has to work hard, to defending the goal of a giant, when the puck hits the goal much less often. Judging by SKA’s habit of changing goalkeepers like gloves, the newcomer has no time to warm up.