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Kunlun seriously fought for a playoff spot this season. The Chinese team was a top-8 contender until the final weeks of the championship and ended up just nine points behind Torpedo, finishing ninth in the Western Conference.
Red Star have seriously improved their game and have become a formidable opponent for any club. The Chinese team has won three out of four matches with SKA. They have also defeated Spartak, CSKA and the semi-finalists of the current Gagarin Cup – Moscow Dynamo, Traktor and Salavat Yulaev.
Kunlun managed to achieve such success largely thanks to its head coach Mikhail Grigoryevich Kravets, who took charge of the team in May 2024, signing a 1+1 contract. However, yesterday, April 30, the club announced that it would not renew the agreement with the coach.
A correspondent from “Championship” spoke with Mikhail Grigorievich and discussed his unexpected departure from “Kunlun”.
“It’s a pity that I only worked at Kunlun for one year.”
– I saw the news that Kunlun decided not to renew your contract.
– Yes, that’s true.
– How did you find out about the club’s decision?
– General manager Nikolai Viktorovich Feoktistov called me and told me that the club’s management had decided not to renew my contract.
— Were you surprised by the club’s decision?
— Of course, I hoped that I would be able to stay, because even though we didn’t make it to the playoffs, the result was still the best in the last three years. There were seven wins in a row, and many wins over good teams. I hoped that I would stay and be given the opportunity to do everything to get the team to the playoffs.
It’s a pity that I worked at Kunlun for only one year. It’s naturally hard to do anything in such a short period of time. I would have liked to have had the opportunity to prove myself in two seasons.
— Did you part on a positive note?
— Of course! What’s wrong with that? That’s the job. We parted without any conflicts. We made a decision — that means we made it. That’s the job of a coach.
— Did you manage to say goodbye to the team?
— No, of course not, we haven’t trained for a long time. The only thing is: I’m still in the team chat, so I think I’ll write a few words.
“I am ready to work. Open to any proposals”
— How would you rate the season in Kunlun?
— As I said, the goal was to get to the playoffs. Unfortunately, we did not achieve it. But we managed to change and fix many things. And the team, I think, showed a fairly good game in many matches. With this good game, we were able to attract most of the fans — the number of fans in Mytishchi at Kunlun matches increased. Therefore, in principle, next year we had quite a lot of chances to get to the playoffs.
— In your opinion, what did the team lack to make it to the playoffs? It seemed that Kunlun would be able to cling to the top 8.
— We really had chances — in January, we were literally two points behind the playoff zone. But, unfortunately, our two leading players — Tomas Jurcho and one of the Fu brothers ( we are talking about Parker Fu, who was out of action in mid-January due to injury and did not appear on the ice again in the 2024/2025 season. — Ed. “Championship” ) — got injured. Our bench was not that long, and, unfortunately, we were not quite able to replace these players.
And the game we showed in the middle of the season was not enough. We should have shown it from the very beginning of the championship. More matches should have been like in the middle of the regular season. I understand what can be fixed, where we can add.
— An interesting fact: this season you continued your successful streak in matches with SKA. Before the 2024/2025 season, teams under your leadership had not lost to the army men since September 2021, and over these four years you have won seven out of eight matches with the St. Petersburg club. What is the secret of a successful game with SKA?
— There are no secrets. The team has always been very well prepared against strong opponents, giving 200%. But you see: we won three, but lost one match 0:8. I think everything went well at those stages when we played with SKA — the guys just did everything as they should, plus the goalies played great. That’s why we won. But we needed to have such stability in all games, and not just with the SKA team.
— They say that Kunlun may return to China. Have there been any such talks within the team?
— I don’t know anything about that. There are a lot of these talks and rumors around the team — about China, about other things. At this stage, I can’t comment on it or say anything about it.