Kontinental Hockey League betting odds

Widely considered as the second strongest hockey league in the world, Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) is the strongest league in Europe and consisted primarly from teams from Russia. In the late years, the competition evolved and the recently over season consisted of record 26 teams. After a very interesting and thrilling season, Dynamo Moscow managed to retain the title by beating Traktor Chelyabinsk 4-1 in the final. Next season KHL will break the record for the number of teams, adding Croatian side Medveščak Zagreb and another club from Vladivostok, raising the total number of teams to 28 and number of countries that have a team involved to 8. The tournament consists of Eastern and Western conference and tournament type is play-off, so that the winner from each conference play the final game in the final.

The 2013/2014 season is set to start in September and we can already mention HC Dynamo Moscow as the favorites for the title. After merging with HC MVD in 2010, the results from Dynamo have improved dramatically and they even managed to clinch two consecutive league titles. The squad mostly consisting from Russian international players, Dynamo grew out to be one of the best maintained clubs in Russia and goes as one of the strongest clubs in Europe. Dynamo Moscow competes in the Western conference, where they are being accompanied by St Petersburg and CSKA Moscow as the best clubs so we can name then as main rivals for the Western play-off. Dynamo did not impress in the group stage and finished below CSKA and Saint Petersburg but great performance in the knockout stages earned them a place in the final and eventually a title. The dominance of Dynamo truly depends on the performance of these two teams and they are being considered the strongest teams that can upset Dynamo. Should CSKA and Saint Petersburg improve their game, they could easily overthrow Dynamo as the best team of the Western conference. Saint Petersburg already showed some potential last year, as they won the Continental cup so we have every right to be optimistic about their performance next season.

As far as East conference is concerned, the last team that won the KHL that came from the Easter conference is Salavat Yulaev Ufa. Last year Traktor Chelyabinsk came to the final but lost to Dynamo as we already mentioned. The situation did not change a lot and Traktor can still be considered the main favorite from the Eastern Conference. Traktor is slowly improving their game and they won a trophy back in 2012, winning Continental cup against Avangard Omsk. Traktor also mostly consists from home-grown players but there are also a number of internationals that are part of the club. Traktor is considered to be the best team in the Easter Conference and they have their latest results to back that claim. With teams like Avangard Omsk and AK Bars Kazan, which are considered as the surprise elements in this conference. For the past two years, Omsk and Traktor were rivals for the final, so we can see this happening again.

The winner of the KHL league is presented with the trophy called Gagarin trophy. The format that includes foreign clubs was launched in 2008 and clubs from Eastern conference won 3 titles, compared to two titles from Dynamo and West conference. It is very unlikely that something will change for the upcoming season and Dynamo can easily be named as the favorite for another Gagarin trophy.

Who wins the KHL 2013/2014?