Salavat Yulaev Ufa

Salavat Yulaev Ufa (Russian: Салават Юлаев Уфа) is a professional club based in Ufa, Bashkortostan, Russia, playing in the Continental Hockey League. The club was founded 1957. Its name comes from Salavat Yulaev, a national Bashkir hero who hailed from Ufa.

Kontinental Hockey League
The first season of Ufa in the KHL was a disappointment. The team finished first overall in the regular season standings, seven points ahead of Ak Bars Kazan, which should be a good reason to rejoice; however, despite being regular season champions, Salavat's playoffs run ended prematurely, as the team was eliminated in the first round by the unexpected 16th place Avangard Omsk, losing on the shootouts at home before losing twice in Omsk. It was not the first time that season that the shootouts played against the Bashkir team, as they stripped Salavat from a participation to the Champions Hockey League's final, allowing Metallurg Magnitogorsk in instead.

Salavat stars Alexei Tereschenko, Alexander Perezhogin and Alexander Radulov enjoyed solid campaigns, finishing respectively 5th, 11th and 13th best scorers league-wide, while goaltender Alexander Eremenko finished with a solid save percentage of 93,7%, second best to Atlant Mytischi's Vitali Kolesnik in the league. But the stellar core couldn't prevent an Avangard win, which resulted in Sergei Mikhalev's forced dismissal. The facts were, the team was diminished by Oleg Tverdovsky's broken ankle and Kirill Koltsov's viral infection that kept them out of the game at such a crucial moment. And to add to the bad season ending, Alexander Astashev, Mikhalev's assistant and long-time friend deceased threeweeks later.