KOVALEV REIGNS AT KUNLUN RED STAR

Alexei Kovalev will make his head coaching debut for Kunlun Red Star Beijing this upcoming year, after two seasons serving as an assistant coach under Jussi Tapola and Curt Fraser. Kovalev has been the steady presence in a sea of changes facing the KHL’s newest expansion team—including a number of temporary stays from Shanghai to Shenzhen, and the Dragons’ anticipated return to Beijing. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation, Kunlun will call Russia home for the 2020-21 season, and is projected to play in Mytishchi—located north of the Russian capital in the Moscow Oblast. It could be considered a homecoming of sorts for Kovalev, who spent the 2011-2012 season playing for the city’s former KHL team, Atlant.

An Olympic and Stanley Cup champion whose career was characterized by arresting skill, Kovalev previously served as Sporting Director of EHC Visp, a Swiss League team based in the southern canton of Valais. In addition to managing Kunlun’s power play last season, Kovalev took extra time to help players improve their skating and stick-handling—two trademarks of his own career that spanned over eighteen seasons and more than 1,000 NHL points. Kunlun captain Brandon Yip recently remarked on the prowess that the forty-seven-year-old winger displays during three-on-three scrimmages after practice. It is therefore no surprise that he almost donned a Kunlun jersey in 2018 after a slew of injuries hit the roster.

I caught up with Kovalev to discuss his latest milestone, and the coaches and experiences that shaped his own playing career.

Gillian Kemmerer (GK): Iron Mike Keenan was once the head coach of Kunlun Red Star, so now the ’94 Rangers connection comes full-circle. I have to ask…will anyone be getting a seven-minute shift this season?

Alexei Kovalev (AK): [Laughs] No, this is not my way of teaching and giving lessons to the guys!

GK: You drew two penalties and scored a goal on that shift. I’m wondering who learned a lesson.

AK: I think he wanted to send a message to me that if I kept over-playing my shift, then he will test me that way. I only found out after I was on the ice for two minutes…

GK: In terms of the most influential coaches in your own playing career, or those from whom you might draw inspiration this season, how does Keenan rank?

AK: I liked Mike Keenan because he was fair with players. He understood us. He knew that how and when to use a player depended on their mentality. For example, in times when I wouldn't have a good game with my line, he would bench us and we would sit there for five, seven minutes. A lot of players would just quit in that situation and say, "Ah, screw you." But he knew that benching us would be our motivation. He knew that the only way to get stuff out of me and make me play better was by benching me, or pretending that he was benching me and I'm not going to play again. At some point he comes to you and says, "Are you ready to play? Or are you going to just enjoy the ride?" He knows players. He knows how to motivate them.

GK: Can you recall any moments when a coaching tactic did not work on you?

AK: Yeah—there was one time his motivation didn't really work, which was right before the Stanley Cup playoffs started. He brought all four Russians to the office and he started giving us all this shit like, "You don't care [about the Cup], you're Russians, blah, blah." We kindof just looked at each other like, "What the hell is he talking about?” I had guys standing next to me who had won Olympic Championships and Russian Championships and all kinds of things, and he was telling us that we didn't know how to win! [Laughs] So we listened and just left the room.

GK: Now as a coach yourself, how do you determine the best methods for motivating players?

AK: Well, first of all, I ask myself if this is the type of guy I would have played with, if I was still a player. I am experienced enough playing hockey all my career, and I've had a lot of coaches—so I have enough information on how to match players. But most importantly, you have to understand the player. You have to play around his skills. There's no time for switching him over, or teaching him things. Of course the teaching process is still going to happen, but you’re not going to have time to say, "You've got to try to do this.” Things he has not really done before.

At the same time, it's a lot of teaching guys how to play together as a unit. And I'm probably going to try to keep the guys on the same lines as much as possible. Most importantly, you need to understand the player, see his potential, figure out what he is capable of and use him in the right spot. If you use a player in the right spot and let him open up to his potential, then the player's only going to get better.

GK: You ran Kunlun’s power play last season. Defenseman Victor Bartley echoed what you just said to me—success revolved around keeping the same guys together, but it was not always easy.

AK:  I was trying to keep them [together] as much as possible, but at one point it was a little bit hard to do, because guys got sick, injured and some other issues. Maybe they were not playing well, or maybe the guy was playing too much short-handed or 5-on-5 and I couldn't use him because he already had a lot of ice time. It was a lot of different things. But I think, if you spread out workload, certain lines tasked with certain things and not overplaying certain players, everyone will feel responsible for the action on the ice. I think that would probably work best—everyone knowing what their responsibilities are. 

GK: There are so many different coaching styles at play in Russia right now. Standing behind the bench for the past two seasons, has any single system or philosophy stood out to you?

AK: It’s all based on the quality of players that you have. If you don't have a lot of quality players, or you’ve got young guys who still have to climb up in this league and be able to play with the high-level players, then of course you're probably going to concentrate more on defensive play. Behave more defensively and try to explore offense when it's available for you.

If you have higher-skilled players, the way I look at it, you have a lot of potential. You don’t have to run-and-gun and keep pressing the team all the time, because eventually you're going to run out of juice. You have to manage the energy, and you have to manage what you do on the ice. That's what I'm going to try to do.

I don't like to repeat what other teams do or what other players do. I always try to come up with my own ideas or tune my own vision. I want to come up with things that you can do on the ice differently that surprises other teams. That's what I'm going to try to do with this team—change things during the game if we need to. Be a more unpredictable team and do things on the ice that the other teams won’t be able to expect. I don’t want to copy any other styles.

GK: Kunlun did not make the playoffs after a difficult season. Looking back, would you have changed anything?

AK: Every coach has his own vision and things that he could have done better. Curt did his best and used his own style, and like I said, of course we all could have done some things differently. If I can name only one thing, it would have been finding a solution for the lines and keeping them together. That's one of the most important things.

GK: Do you think Kunlun’s relocation to the Moscow region could be a tailwind this season? How much of an impact do you think the East-West travel schedule had on the guys in years past?

AK: Of course it has a big effect. I was talking to a friend of mine—it’s one thing if you travel five times, eleven hours, versus if you travel only two times. It is going to be much easier in terms of how to manage the players, the team, where to put a little bit more pressure between the games as far as keeping them in shape and energized. Last year, watching those players, it was hard even trying to put myself in their position. To be able to recover from an eleven-hour flight plus the eight-hour time difference, that's a lot for the body to take. You maybe can take it for a month or two maximum, but after that, your body just falls apart. It doesn't matter how you're managing yourself, how much you take care of yourself. It's still hard.

GK: Will you have to modify your training camp plans given that players have not been on the ice?

AK: I hope that all of these guys have been training, because that's what we always rely on when dealing with North American players. They always start training on their own a month before training camp. These guys arrive pretty much ready to go, and we don't have to waste any time.

From what I understand, we're not going to be part of the Magnitogorsk tournament, but it seems like we still have the Saint Petersburg tournament. If we're going to start somewhere on the 5th or 6th of August, then it is not much time for preparation. The Saint Petersburg tournament is not going to be easy to play, but we're going to do our best in a short period of time to set up our team and get them ready for the beginning of the season.

GK: Your sons—Ivan and Nikita—are developing into wonderful hockey players. Is it easier to coach your boys, or the pros?

AK: One thing I’ve learned is that when your sons get to a certain level, when they already feel that they’ve learned a lot, they stop listening to you. They realize that they know all of the information, and you’re repeating yourself. The kids usually start searching: “Okay, I’ve heard enough from Dad saying this over and over again. I think I know what I need to work on. What can I hear from other coaches? What can I learn from other people?” They started swallowing all of this information or looking for new information at the same time. They still listen to me for corrections.

Professionals or sons—I mean, it's pretty much the same. With professionals, you have to teach certain things that maybe they haven't done before, or they need to adjust to certain things. That takes time. Some of them are a little bit harder to deal with because they think they already know so much. There's a lot of different attitudes and a lot of different skills that you have to play around with and see if you can add something, or if the player will accept [feedback]. 

But my kids, they're still listening and still learning—which is good. For example, the other day, my older son came back from camp and said, "I have no idea what I'm doing in the defensive zone." So I said, "That's simple. I mean, as I told you before, you just have to visualize it.” But I had to draw on a piece of paper and tell him, "If you play the wings, this is your job. If you play center, this is your job." And make it really simple. When you're in camp, a lot of kids don't really play their positions. They're just running around because they want to show themselves. I said, "I think you know how to play it, you may just get a little confused because other guys are running around and not doing their jobs.”

GK: You told me a story once about your arrival to Dynamo Moscow at the age of fourteen. Given that you are about to notch another milestone, take us back to where it began.

AK: We were at one of the local tournaments in my hometown. Before that tournament, I broke my wrist, but I still asked the coach to go with the team. So I had a cast on, and I was still skating with the team and on the ice, just with a stick in one hand.

A scout from Dynamo [Moscow] was there. As young kids, we always played hockey in the hallways. He came out every once in a while, and was like, "Oh come on you guys, keep quiet."

When it came to the end of the tournament, he approached me and said, "Come to my room.” I got a little spooked. I thought he was going to reprimand me because we were yelling in the hallway. When I got to his room, he said, "I'm from Dynamo and I'd be interested if you want to come play for us and finish school there.”

My eyes turned on like a bright light. I got so excited. I wasn't even thinking about the fact that I would be fourteen years old and living in Moscow without my family. I couldn't really wait to get home and tell my parents. 

GK: Many Soviet-era athletes have similar stories of departing home at a young age.
I can imagine that your parents were proud, but also terrified?

AK: My dad was excited about it, but I mean, he was scared for a fourteen-year-old kid leaving the house. My mom was crying. She was like, “You’ll wake up tomorrow. You'll forget about it. You're still young. You're not going to leave by yourself at fourteen years old."

So anyway, I woke up the next morning and I was like, "Dad, Mom, so what do you think?" They realized I was not going to back off, or let this one go easily. All summer we discussed Dynamo. And when the time came—I think it was in July—they told us to take the train and [former Dynamo player] Nikolishin would meet us at the station. Me and my Dad took the train to Moscow, but when we came out of the station, we didn't see anybody.

I was so excited and acting like an adult already. I was like, "Dad, maybe he forgot. Or maybe he already left or didn't find us. Let's just go on the subway. I mean, there's signs everywhere and I'm sure we can find where to go." And he was like, "No, no, it's a big city. We don't want to get lost." My dad was scared. We arrived at 11:00 in the morning, I think, and we sat there for an entire day and then an entire night.

GK: How did you eventually find your way to Dynamo home base?

AK: Well in the morning I said, "Dad, how long do you want to sit here?" And eventually we decided to find the stadium. It was no problem. Nikolishin had gotten mixed up with the trains, and that's why he couldn't find us. We eventually found the dormitory and there were three older guys than me in the room. My Dad said, "Okay, my train leaves in three hours. You stay here, and I'm going to the train station." I sat there for an hour and realized what was happening. I was fourteen years old in a different city, alone…and what was next? I got a little scared. 

To break that up, I decided to go to the train station and say goodbye to my Dad. I took the subway and found him. He could not believe it when I got there and he was like, “How did you get here? Why did you come here?” I wanted to show him that I already knew how to get from one station to another, and then he became really calm. I think he realized that I was already mature, and was not going to get lost in the big city.

GK: That story shows a certain independence of spirit that I expect will characterize how you take on the challenge of a head coaching gig.

AK: We all have to pursue our goals. But in order to pursue them, you have to pass the challenges. That was one of mine.