The KHL formally closed their tenth season tonight in Moscow with their annual Closing Ceremony, awarding the league’s top teams, players and executives for their performance this year, with finalists SKA Saint Petersburg and Ak Bars Kazan drawing in the biggest haul and thirteen IHLC winners taking home trophies.
Nikita Gusev won the biggest haul of the night, winning the league’s MVP and Gentlemanly Awards, in addition to being named to the league All-Star Team. Gusev’s teammates also came out handsomely, with Ilya Kovalchuk winning Top Scorer and Pavel Datsyuk winning the Services To Hockey Award.ย League champions Ak Bars Kazan saw titles for Best Coach and Manager go to Zinetula Bilyaletdinov and Nail Maganov, respectively, while Justin Azevedo was awarded Playoff MVP. Winners from seven nations were represented, and four members of the Olympic Athletes From Russia Olympic Gold Medal squad (Gusev, Kovalchuk, Datsyuk and Bogdan Kiselevich) took home hardware.
In addition, a surprise appearance from IIHF President Renรฉ Fasel awarded the first “Sirius Award,” to the first player to ever add the Gagarin Cup to his Triple Gold Club membership – Pavel Datsyuk.ย “The Magic Man,” who joined the Triple Gold Club this February as a result of his Olympic Gold, won the Stanley Cup with Detroit in 2002, World Championship in 2012 and Gagarin Cup with SKA Saint Petersburg in 2017, giving him the distinction of being the first to hold all four titles. Russia should hope Datsyuk will hang around until the 2020 World Cup Of Hockey to make his quadruple title a quintuple!
The KHLย Award Trophy winners for the 2017-18 season (with winners in bold and an asterisk denoting former IHLC holders) are as follows:
Golden Stickย (League MVP)
๐ท๐บ Nikita Gusev (SKA)*
Top Scorer
๐ท๐บ Ilya Kovalchukย (SKA)*
Top Sniper (Most Goals)
๐ฐ๐ฟ Nigel Dawesย (Barys)
Top Scoring Defenceman
๐ฉ๐ฐ Philip Larsen (Salavat Yulaev)*
Goalie Of The Year
๐จ๐ฟ Pavel Francouz (Traktor)*
Best Plus / Minus
๐ท๐บ Maxim Shalunovย (CSKA)*
Best Troika (Highest Scoring Line)
๐ซ๐ฎ Teemu Hartikainen, ๐ซ๐ฎย Joonas Kemppainen & ๐ธ๐ชย Linus Omark (Salavat Yulaev)*
Alexei Cherepanov Award (Top Rookie)
๐ท๐บ Vitali Kravtsovย (Traktor)
Gentleman On Ice (Sportsmanship & Performance)
๐ท๐บ Nikita Gusevย (SKA)*
๐ท๐บ Yegor Martynov (Avangard)
Services To Hockey (Best Hockey Ambassador)
๐ท๐บ Pavel Datsyuk (SKA)*
Iron Man Award (Most Games Played)
๐ท๐บ Yegveni Timkin (Metallurg)
Best Coach
๐ท๐บ Zinetula Bilyaletdinov (Ak Bars)*
Valentin Sych Award (Best Manager)
๐ท๐บ Nail Maganov (Ak Bars)
Playoff MVP
๐จ๐ฆ Justin Azevedo (Ak Bars)
WHL Player Of The Year (Best Female Player)
๐ท๐บ Olga Sosina (Agidel)
Golden Helmet (KHL All-Star Team)
๐จ๐ฆ Justin Azevedo (Ak Bars)
๐จ๐ฟ Pavel Francouz (Traktor)*
๐ท๐บ Nikita Gusev (SKA)*
๐ท๐บ Dmitri Kagarlitski (Severstal)*
๐ท๐บ Bogdan Kiselevich (CSKA)*
๐ท๐บ Nikita Tryamkin (Avtomobilist)*
Photo Credit: KHL Twitter โ IIHF โ HHOF โ IOC