SKA - Torpedo. Presenting the opponents

Overall these two teams have played against each other 169 times in USSR and Russian championships. SKA have 75 victories, while Torpedo are ahead on 78 wins. 16 games incidentally finished up as a draw. The goal difference is 565 - 554 also in Torpedo's favour.

This won't be the first knockout series between SKA and Torpedo. Back in 1952 in the USSR Cup, SKA ended up victorious 7:4. A couple of years later our team then won 9:3, and in the 1977/1978 season Torpedo this time won 10:4 at home.

In the 1960/1961 season, the two teams met in a playoff series to see who would finish between fifth and eighth of the USSR championship. Torpedo were stronger overall (5:2 and 2:3), and got fifth place with SKA coming seventh.

Top performing Torpedo players in games against SKA for their clubs:

Goaltenders: Mikhail Biryukov has represented five different clubs in fourteen appearances against SKA. In the game on the 20th of January this year, he kept a clean sheet for the first ever time. Ivan Kasutin is the only Torpedo to have ever played for SKA, however in matches against our team he has conceded 43 goals and let in eight in one game while playing for Spartak Moscow on the fourth of December 2011.

Defencemen: Jussi Hietanen has 6 points (1+5) in matches playing with SKA. Alexey Pepelyaev is second (2+3), with Mikhail Grigoryev (1+1), Vladimir Malevich (1+0) and Sergey Bernatskiy (0+1) bringing up the rear.

Forwards: Dmitry Kazionov has 14 points (6+8), Kirill Knyazev 10 (6+4), Jarkko Immonen 8 (6+2) and Viktor Drugov 6 (5+1). The list then goes on with Vladimir Galuzin on 5 points (2+3), Gennady Stolyarov has 4 (3+1), Nikita Filatov 4 (2+2), Sakari Salminen 4 (1+3), Denis Kazionov 3 (2+1), Vadim Krasnoslobodtsev 3 (0+3), Wojtech Wolski 2 (1+1), Alexey Potapov 2 (1+1), Vyacheslav Kulyomin 2 (1+1), and finally Sergey Demagin, Daniil Zharkov and Veli Matti Savinainen have 1 goal apiece.

Head coach Peteris Skudra has used 46 players this campaign. Nine of them were mid season transfers.

Vladimir Galuzin and Alexey Potapov are in their eighth Torpedo seasons.

Jarkko Immonen is the only Finn in the KHL who has managed to score a hat trick against SKA. That came on the 1st of October 2013, a match which Torpedo won 5:2 at home.

Ivan Kasutin, Nikita Filatov and Vyacheslav Kulyomin all played under Vyacheslav Bykov for CSKA Moscow, while Mikhail Grigoryev won the Gagarin Cup when Vyacheslav was in charge of Salavat Yulaev Ufa.

Peteris Skudra was still playing for CSKA in the 2005/2006 and 2006/2007 seasons when Vyacheslav Bykov was coaching there. Peteris, a Latvian, was the first goaltender from the USSR to play in the NHL while being undrafted.

Ilya Kablukov is the only current SKA player who has at one time played for Torpedo. In the 2008/2009 season he took to the ice for Nizhny Novgorod.