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. 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 René Fasel awarded the first “Sirius Award,” to the first player to ever add the Gagarin Cup to his Triple Gold Club membership – Pavel Datsyuk. “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 KHL Award Trophy winners for the 2017-18 season (with winners in bold and an asterisk denoting former IHLC holders) are as follows:
Golden Stick (League MVP)
🇷🇺 Nikita Gusev (SKA)*
Top Scorer
🇷🇺 Ilya Kovalchuk (SKA)*
Top Sniper (Most Goals)
🇰🇿 Nigel Dawes (Barys)
Top Scoring Defenceman
🇩🇰 Philip Larsen (Salavat Yulaev)*
Goalie Of The Year
🇨🇿 Pavel Francouz (Traktor)*
Best Plus / Minus
🇷🇺 Maxim Shalunov (CSKA)*
Best Troika (Highest Scoring Line)
🇫🇮 Teemu Hartikainen, 🇫🇮 Joonas Kemppainen & 🇸🇪 Linus Omark (Salavat Yulaev)*
Alexei Cherepanov Award (Top Rookie)
🇷🇺 Vitali Kravtsov (Traktor)
Gentleman On Ice (Sportsmanship & Performance)
🇷🇺 Nikita Gusev (SKA)*
🇷🇺 Yegor Martynov (Avangard)
Services To Hockey (Best Hockey Ambassador)
🇷🇺 Pavel Datsyuk (SKA)*
Iron Man Award (Most Games Played)
🇷🇺 Yegveni Timkin (Metallurg)
Best Coach
🇷🇺 Zinetula Bilyaletdinov (Ak Bars)*
Valentin Sych Award (Best Manager)
🇷🇺 Nail Maganov (Ak Bars)
Playoff MVP
🇨🇦 Justin Azevedo (Ak Bars)
WHL Player Of The Year (Best Female Player)
🇷🇺 Olga Sosina (Agidel)
Golden Helmet (KHL All-Star Team)
🇨🇦 Justin Azevedo (Ak Bars)
🇨🇿 Pavel Francouz (Traktor)*
🇷🇺 Nikita Gusev (SKA)*
🇷🇺 Dmitri Kagarlitski (Severstal)*
🇷🇺 Bogdan Kiselevich (CSKA)*
🇷🇺 Nikita Tryamkin (Avtomobilist)*
Photo Credit: KHL Twitter – IIHF – HHOF – IOC
