The Kontinental Hockey League formally wrapped their fifteenth season tonight in Moscow with their annual Closing Ceremony, awarding the league’s top teams, players and executives for their performance this year, with eleven IHLC winners from Russia and Czechia taking home trophies.

Despite CSKA Moscow capturing the Gagarin Cup just under three weeks ago, it was SKA Saint Petersburg, and namely their captain and star winger Dmitrij Jaškin, who came away as the big winner, capturing League MVP, goal and points titles, along with being named to the league All-Star team for the season. Teammates Alexander Nikshin and Andrei Pedan took home honours for top scoring defender and best plus-minus, respectively, with Nikishin also making the league All-Star team.

CSKA, meanwhile, saw three trophies won, for Top Coach (Sergei Fyodorov), the “Iron Man” Award (Konstantin Okulov) and Playoff MVP (Mikhail Grigorenko), while other teams taking home hardware included Avangard Omsk, Metallurg Magnitogorsk and Admiral Vladivostok taking home two trophies each, along with Ak Bars Kazan star Alexander Radulov rounding out the KHL All-Star Team. To celebrate their fifteenth season, an anniversary “Golden Team” was awarded, with KHL legends and ILHC winners Zinetula Bilyaletdinov, Alexander Yeryomenko, Ilya Nikulin, Danis Zaripov, Sergei Mozyakin and Ilya Kovalchuk honoured, the only non-Russian being Canadian-born Kazakh defender Kevin Dallman.

Due to Russia’s continued invasion of Ukraine, and subsequent ban from international competition and exodus of non-Russian teams and most non-Russian players, the only non-Russian trophy winners were Czech Jaškin, Canadian Corban Knight and American Reid Boucher, who won the “Best Troika” award with Russian Vladimir Tkachyov, representing the top line from Avangard.

The KHL Award Trophy winners for the 2022-23 season (with winners in bold and an asterisk denoting former IHLC holders) are as follows:

Golden Stick (League MVP)
🇨🇿 Dmitrij Jaškin (SKA)*
🇷🇺 Alexander Nikishin (SKA)*
🇷🇺 Alexander Radulov (Ak Bars)*

Top Scorer (Most Points)
🇨🇿 Dmitrij Jaškin (SKA)*

Top Sniper (Most Goals)
🇨🇿 Dmitrij Jaškin (SKA)*

Top Scoring Defenceman
🇷🇺 Alexander Nikishin (SKA)*

Best Troika (Top Scoring Line)
🇺🇸 Reid Boucher (Avangard)
🇨🇦 Corban Knight (Avangard)
🇷🇺 Vladimir E. Tkachyov (Avangard)*

Top Goaltender
🇷🇺 Maxim Dorozhko (Vityaz)
🇷🇺 Danil Isayev (Lokomotiv)
🇷🇺 Nikita Serebryakov (Admiral)

Best Plus / Minus
🇷🇺 Andrei Pedan (SKA)*

Iron Man Award
🇷🇺 Konstantin Okulov (CSKA)*
🇷🇺 Denis Zernov (Avangard)*

Alexei Cherepanov Award (Top Rookie)
🇷🇺 Nikita Grebyonkin (Metallurg)
🇷🇺 Bogdan Konyushkov (Torpedo)
🇷🇺 Stepan Nikulin (Lokomotiv)

Gimayev Prize (Loyalty To Hockey)
🇷🇺 Vasili Koshechkin (Metallurg)*

Best Coach
🇷🇺 Zinetula Bilyaletdinov (Ak Bars)*
🇷🇺 Sergei Fyodorov (CSKA)*
🇷🇺 Igor Larionov (Torpedo)*

Best Director
🇷🇺 Igor Yesmantovich (CSKA)

Playoff MVP
🇷🇺 Mikhail Grigorenko (CSKA)*

Golden Helmet (KHL All-Star Team)
🇷🇺 Mikhail Grigorenko (CSKA)*
🇨🇿 Dmitrij Jaškin (SKA)*
🇷🇺 Nikita Nesterov (CSKA)*
🇷🇺 Alexander Nikishin (SKA)*
🇷🇺 Alexander Radulov (Ak Bars)*
🇷🇺 Nikita Serebryakov (Admiral)

Photo Credit: KHL – IIHF – HHOF – IOC