Former coach Cherkas criticizes SKA's losing streak and coaching staff.
The once-mighty SKA, a franchise accustomed to skating in the rarefied air of the Kontinental Hockey League's upper echelons, finds itself in a full-blown crisis, a stark reality punctuated by a demoralizing five-game losing streak that has left them languishing in ninth place in the Western Conference with a middling 13 points from 13 outings. This precipitous fall from grace has not gone unnoticed, and the critique has arrived with the stinging clarity of a slapshot from a former architect of the team's past successes, ex-head coach Sergei Cherkas.His diagnosis is not for the faint of heart, pinpointing a coaching staff he describes as alarmingly 'raw' and a roster in desperate need of coherent identity. Cherkas pulls no punches in his assessment of the support system around the legendary Igor Larionov, a figure whose own hockey pedigree is beyond reproach but who, according to this scathing review, is being let down by his lieutenants.He singles out Evgeny Ketov with particular skepticism, questioning the very functionality of a coach who has never steered a ship on his own, wondering aloud what tangible strategic value he brings to the bench. It’s a situation that would be unthinkable at a club with the stature of, say, FC Barcelona, where every staff member is a specialist, a veteran of countless campaigns whose experience is as vital as the players' talent.The parallels to sports dynasties everywhere are clear: you cannot simply assemble a collection of names; you must build a brain trust. Cherkas’s second major contention revolves around the chaotic composition of the lineup itself, a lack of defined lines that is crippling offensive chemistry.His take on forward Goldobin is a masterclass in pragmatic roster management, a lesson many teams could learn. At 30 years old, a player is a finished product, a known quantity; the futile endeavor of 'educating' him is a misallocation of resources reminiscent of trying to teach Lionel Messi a new way to dribble at the peak of his powers.The focus, Cherkas insists, must shift to curation, not correction—to finding Goldobin the right linemates, the perfect tactical partners who can unlock the scoring prowess he demonstrated at Spartak. This isn't just about X's and O's; it's about understanding the human element of the sport, the unspoken communication between players that turns a collection of individuals into a cohesive, scoring machine.For a club with SKA's ambitions and financial muscle, these are not minor tactical tweaks but fundamental, systemic failures in roster construction and staff deployment. The losing streak is merely a symptom; the disease, as Cherkas so bluntly outlines, is a lack of experienced, authoritative direction both on the bench and in the assembly of the on-ice product. Until these 'serious coaching questions' are answered with decisive action, SKA's slide from contender to also-ran threatens to become a permanent state of affairs, a cautionary tale in a league that shows no mercy to the poorly managed.
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