Record-breaking goal, record-breaking drought

Last week’s on-ice news was all about goals – or the lack of them. Off the ice, meanwhile, the KHL signed an exciting new international partnership and began work towards the possible return of the junior draft for the first time since 2016.Ufa’s oldest scorerSalavat Yulaev captain Grigory Panin’s goal against Sibir last Tuesday made him the oldest man to score for Ufa in the KHL. On game day, Panin was 38 years, 347 days old – 17 days older than previous record-holder Vyacheslav Kozlov. Panin goal helped Salavat to a shoot-out win after a 2-2 tie in regulation.Sharakanov’s super-goalMaybe this is what they mean by the fearlessness of youth? Magomed Sharakanov, a young defenseman loaned by Dynamo to Lada, returned to Moscow to face his parent club. And the 20-year-old certainly made an impression with a spectacular “lacrosse” goal against his long-term employer. It’s a rare feat for anyone, but even less common for a defenseman to pull that one off. However, maybe Dynamo head coach Alexei Kudashov should not have been too surprised: earlier in the season Sharakanov’s first KHL goal came when Dynamo visited Togliatti.Lada’s lacrosse goal helps to beat Dynamo. November 8 round-upUnwanted record for AmurWhen Amur’s Evgeny Grachyov scored in the third period of Tuesday’s game against Avangard, he snapped a run of five games without a goal for the Tigers. By the time Grachyov scored, his team had gone 358:38 minutes without a goal, outstripping Spartak’s unwanted record of 317:02 goalless minutes from 2012. While Grachyov ended the goalless streak, Amur has yet to halt its winless run: at the time of writing, the Khabarovsk team has lost its last 11 games and is still awaiting the appointment of a permanent head coach.Unwanted record for Amur. November 5 round-upKRS claims historic win over SKASKA, still third in the Western Conference, has a long way to go before it matches Amur’s 11-game skid. However, the stacked Petersburg roster has problems of its own after losing four in a row. Along the way, SKA suffered its first ever defeat on the road at Kunlun Red Star: the Dragons previous wins were all in St. Petersburg, and even the nominal home game in Feb. 2024 (3-2 to KRS) was switched to SKA Arena for technical reasons. Rourke Chartier’s OT goal, plus 40 saves from Jeremy Smith, clinched a little bit of Kunlun history. Meanwhile, SKA head coach Roman Rotenberg will equal the longest skid of his career if his team loses at Avangard on Monday.SKA slips up at KRS, Torpedo edges thriller at DynamoKHL establishes ties with SerbiaA recent working visit to Belgrade saw KHL president Alexei Morozov and vice-president for hockey operations Andrei Tochitsky sign an agreement with the Crvena Zvezda (Red Star) hockey club. The league plans to share its expertise and experience with Serbia’s leading club, helping to raise coaching and refereeing standards and advising on how to upgrade arenas to enhance player, spectator and media facilities. In future, look out for joint coaching camps for Russian and Serbian players, plus competitions between Serbian teams and KHL hockey schools.The KHL and Crvena Zvezda signed a Memorandum of strategic cooperationDraft proposals go to working groupThe KHL announced that it is looking at bringing back its ‘draft’. From 2009-2016, the league ran an annual Junior Draft, or Yarmarka in Russian, to help clubs secure promising prospects from Russia and beyond, while also helping talented players find roles that would aid their development. Now there’s an appetite to bring this back and the KHL is setting up a working group to determine how best to proceed. Members of the group will meet with representatives from all areas of the game – club directors, GMs, agents and analysts – to develop the most transparent and market-based draft system.