Neftekhimik vs Avtomobilist 09/24/2024

Neftekhimik will play game #9 of the season! 

About the game:

Neftekhimik will play its only home game. Neftekhimik is on a 3–game losing streak.

Milestone alert:

Neftekhimik’s defenseman Bogdan Kiselevich may score his 200th career point (currently 198).

Probably, Avtomobilist is the closest and most friendly team to Neftekhimik in the KHL in terms of migration of players and coaches. Several years ago, Avtomobilist was coached by Vladimir Krikunov, who worked for many years at Neftekhimik. Now Nikolai Zavarukhin is Avtomobilist Head Coach. Nikolai made his debut in the KHL as Coach in Nizhnekamsk as an assistant to Vladimir Krikunov. After that, he worked in Novosibirsk. Now he is working in Yekaterinburg. There is also an opposite example. The current Neftekhimik head coach Oleg Leontyev worked as a coach at Avtomobilist several years ago.

In the early 2000s, when hockey was barely breathing in Yekaterinburg, Alexei Simakov and Maxim Krayev moved to Neftekhimik, and their line mate Pavel Datsyuk became a player of Ak Bars.

Nizhnekamsk alumni Maxim Berezin and Pavel Kulikov played for Avtomobilist. Before the start of last season, Kirill Vorobyov moved from Nizhnekamsk to Yekaterinburg. This season, Evgeny Kashnikov also joined Avtomobilist. In return, Vladislav Leontyev returned to Nizhnekamsk. There were also Alexander Sevostyanov and Semyon Kizimov, who played for Neftekhimik for a year and returned to Avtomobilist.