Metallurg Magnitogorsk / Металлург Магнитогорск

Gagarin Cup Champions 2014

Metallurg Magnitogorsk is crowned Kontinental Hockey League Champions for the 1st time in team history, as the defeated HC Lev Prague from the Czech Republic 7 to 4.

Team Roster

Viktor Antipin, Evgeny Biryukov, Evgeny Grigorenko, Tim Brent, Rinat Ibragimov, Dmitri Kazionov, Yaroslav Khabarov, Vasily Koshechkin, Jan Kovář, Yaroslav Kosov, Chris Lee, Vladimir Malenkykh, Vladimir Malinovsky, Filipp Metlyuk, Sergei Mozyakin, Oskar Osala, Francis Paré, Alexander Pechurskiy, Denis Platonov, Bogdan Potekhin, Anton Shenfeld, Sergei Tereshchenko, Evgeny Timkin, Mikhail Yunkov, Danis Zaripov

Head Coach - Mike Keenan

General Manager - Valery Postnikov

President / Owner - Viktor Rashnikov

The Kontinental Hockey League / KHL championship went to a final game 7 to decide the Gagarin Cup Champion for 2014.

Metallurg Magnitogorsk, or the Foxes as their known to the fans in Magnitogorsk open the scoring at the 4:43 mark of the 1st period with a goal by Francis Paré, assisted by (Yaroslav Khabarov). HC Lev Prague would tie the game at 13:49 of the 1st when David Ullstrom deflected a shot from Marc-Andre Gragnani at the blueline.

The 2nd period saw a flurry of goals as Metallurg started to pull away, Evgeny Biryukov scored at 23:32 mark, assited by (Viktor Antipin & Danis Zaripov). HC Lev would tie the game at 34:41 when Ryan O'Byrne scored, and then Metallurg started to pull away with goals by Yaroslav Kosov (Evgeny Timkin & Dmitry Kazionov) at 36:56, Jan Kovar (Viktor Antipin & Danis Zaripov) at 37:37.

The 3rd period started the same way, with goals from Metallurg's Sergei Mozyakin (Danis Zaripov & Jan Kovar) at 43:10, and Danis Zaripov (Jan Kovar) at 52:35. HC Lev scored 2 goals in a row to close the gap, Martin Thornberg (Ondrej Nemec) at 53:55, and then Justin Azevedo (Ondrej Nemec & Jiri Novotny) at 58:19. Metallurg would seal the championship late in the game with a empty net goal by Mikhail Yunkov (Francis Paré & Oskar Osala) at 59:51.

Metallurg's goalie Vasily Koshechkin made 43 saves in the victory.

Metallurg's captain Sergei Mozyakin won the MVP trophy for the Gagarin Cup playoffs.

The 2014 Gagarin Cup final also marked several records:

Mozyakin took his season’s points tally to 106, setting a new record for KHL, Russian Superleague and Soviet League hockey

Keenan became the first non-Russian coach to win the Gagarin Cup and the first foreigner to take the Russian championship since Vladimir Vuitek’s double triumph in Yaroslavl in 2002 and 2003.

HC Lev also made history in the record books, becoming the first non-Russian team to contest a Gagarin Cup final after defeating teams in the Western Conference.

Game 4 at Prague’s O2 Arena established a KHL attendance record of 17,073, beating the previous best set in Game 3.

HC Lev also took part in the first ever KHL playoff game to go to a fourth period of overtime, finally losing 4-3 to Donbass after 126:14 of game time.

Justin Azevedo, perhaps now the most famous hockey player to claim Portuguese roots, also managed a big personal achievement, becoming the first player to score in all seven games of a KHL final series.

Azevedo’s eight goals made a big contribution to the 44 shared between the teams in the final series – that, as well as the 11 scored in tonight’s decider, also set a new KHL record.