Shortly after the becoming the leading-scorer at the 2014 World Championship, Viktor Tikhonov received a hero’s welcome back with SKA St. Petersburg. Despite the pre-game ceremony and celebrations, Tikhonov had come back with ulterior motives. The former captain returned to the KHL-leading team on the last leg of his contract. Stripped of a letter and a first line starting role by Jimmie Ericsson, Tikhonov’s future of staying at SKA began to grow rather thin.
He spoke to the SKA’s (old and now defunct) website about a moment with Oleg Znarok that helped him decide: “We sat together outside the locker room before the start of the tournament in Minsk, and he asked me about my future: where I want to play, if I will return to the NHL. I said that I have a year left on my contract with SKA, but after that I don’t know yet, although I can’t deny that I want to try again in the NHL. He then said to me: ‘Become the top scorer of the tournament, and then everything will be fine’. It worked out that he was right. I will remember that discussion for the rest of my life.’ Then the reports finally came out of contact. Coyotes had reached out a hand to the young forward, Sarah McLellan has tweeted on the 21st of May out that, “Maloney has also reached out to Viktor Tikhonov’s agent to see if he has interest in returning to NHL” And people began to take an interest in this young player, scouting reports dug up from his short tenure with the Coyotes. Ultimately with no way out his $3.1-Million-contract he stayed with SKA’s top line and continued to tip in Ilya Kovalchuk shots and have moments of his own.
The problem was Tikhonov was not quite the same player that he left the Coyotes as. Hockey’s Future had put him down as “Solid two-way winger possessing good size and the capability of playing a grinding style of game.” Yet this is no how SKA had developed him. SKA had not left him as a winger and a penalty killer, but had given him more offensive zone starts, gave him more powerplay time and eventually this role began to flesh out. Tikhonov was never quite in the Steve Moses/Ilya Kovalchuk/Alexander Radulov sniper debate, but his contributions both offensively and defensively became a staple with SKA. He’s position was fixed and under Bykov’s new system, SKA’s top line lead Kovalchuk to spent most of the season on top of the goals.
With SKA, especially when injuries to Vadim Shipachyov and Roman Červenka. Tihkonov was called to switch between a top line net presence winger, to a second or third line centre. This is where he began to flourish at center and helped keep the injury riddled SKA from crashing too hard. Hitting at 21 points in 36 games already, and a previous season total of 34 points 52, his offense hasn’t slowed down, despite missing chunks of games due to injury and personal reasons. This is still including 4 powerplay goals and playing the third most ice time on the team, beaten only by captain Ilya Kovalchuk and second line centre Vadim Shipachyov. In responsibilities on the PK, PP and holding up first line duties, only Kovalchuk and Shipachyov had played the minutes Tikhonov has since his arrival at SKA.
This leaves a rather big problem. SKA are rather short on centres. Having Tikhonov being able to switch between key roles during injuries managed to allow Jimmie Ericsson to stay in his natural centre spot with familiar faces on the Scandinavian line with Tony Mårtensson or Patrick Thoresen. With this gone, SKA will have to look at maybe trying to re-juggle the lines, which means promoting someone. SKA’s mid-season collapse demonstrated that putting rookies like Anton Burdasov or Alexander Barabanov into those 15-20 minute situations is essentially throwing the player into the deep end and expecting them to float. Not aided by the trading away of Igor Makarov who has since found a much more prominent offensive role away from the 4th line, SKA find themselves a little weak on who does take the role.
With Tikhonov gone, the RW spot is up for grabs. The first idea would be, as Evgeny Meshkov coined “The Russian Patrick Kane” in 23 year old Artemi Panarin, an offensive powerhouse that not only beat out Kovalchuk in terms of points and goals, but comes with pre-made chemistry with him on SKA’s first powerplay unit. Artemi Panarin and Ilya Kovalchuk on the blue line have caused textbook, highlight reel snipes over and over again, becoming a rather strong duo together on SKA’s effective powerplay. As great as this sounds, well, Panarin is left wing and as shown in the two goals above, he scores pretty comfortably from the same side and plays almost no even strength time on the right. You’d be taking a non-natural centre left winger and sticking him on the wrong wing. There is also the case you break up the Panarin/ Shipachyov /Dadonov line, who’s chemistry netted all three players in the top for assists at the start of the year and continues to be SKA’s most effective line, scoring a total of 138 points combined, This line has been consistent, rarely broken up and in some games, SKA’s first line.
Conveniently, we got a little glimpse of what could possibly happen when Tikhonov was taken away for a few games with an injury. The replacement was not in the form of Barabanov or Burdasov but of one Pytor Khokhryakov, a 25-year-old centre who sat on a line of Ericsson, Kovalchuk and Khokhryakov. While the line wasn’t that productive, they managed to not become a minus and Khokhryakov notched two assists during the Severstal game on the 18th of January while playing top line duties. His career tallies with SKA might not be as high as Tikhonov’s, never breaching the 20 point mark, but being a constant scratch and rotation on the fourth line, a sudden promotion might spark a little offense and seeing it pan out for more than three or four games splattered about the season might get the line clicking. This comes without disturbing the clicking foreign line or SKA’s highest points line.
Although all this banks on the idea that Tikhonov will actually go to North America, his rights are still owned by the Coyotes. He’s still classed as a Restricted Free Agent but in a year where the UFA market is thin, his rights could be a bargaining bait for the Coyotes to dangle in front of other team’s noses. This plays well for the Coyotes but limits the freedom of what Tikhonov can actually do and where to go. Asking a team to match his $3.1 Million contract for a competent third line centre might not be as attractive for more competitive teams. None the less, his intentions are clear enough; he wants to return to the NHL. Leaving a rather awkward hole for SKA to try and fill.
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