2012–13 KHL season

The 2012–13 KHL season was the fifth season of the Kontinental Hockey League. The regular season began on 4 September with the Lokomotiv Cup between last year's finalists Dynamo Moscow and Avangard Omsk. For the first time, the league consisted of 26 teams from 7 different countries. Dynamo Moscow successfully defended their title after beating Traktor Chelyabinsk in the Gagarin Cup finals.
==Changes==
===Team changes===
After withdrawing from the previous season in the wake of the plane crash that killed the team's entire active roster, Lokomotiv Yaroslavl returned to the KHL with new players.
Lev Poprad was disbanded, but a team of the same name, Lev Prague, was established in Prague, Czech Republic, while Slovan Bratislava joined the KHL and thus continues the league's presence in Slovakia. Also HC Donbass from Donetsk, Ukraine joined the league. The team previously played in the VHL.http://www.hcdonbass.com/home/news/news/18261?lang=ru This brought the total number of teams to 26, representing 7 different countries.
===Salary cap===
The salary cap changed from a soft cap to a hard cap, set at 1.1 billion rubles (approx. US$36.5 million), but each club can waive the cap for one player transferred directly from the NHL, if he is eligible to play for the Russian national team.
===Season structure===
The regular season consisted of 52 games for each team — twice (home and away) against each other team in the league and two extra games against a selected "rival" opponent (typically a geographically close team). This was a change from previous seasons, where all intra-division opponents were played more frequently. The top 8 teams from each conference qualified for the play-offs, which are played as best-of-seven series in each round.
===Nadezhda Cup tournament===
In January 2013, a new repechage tournament known as the Nadezhda Cup (Cup of Hope) was announced, which was held alongside the playoffs. Six teams from the Western Conference and four teams from the Eastern Conference who had not qualified for the playoffs competed in the tournament, whose prize includes the first overall pick in the next KHL Junior Draft. The new tournament was intended to extend the season, and help maintain interest in hockey for fans and players in preparation for the 2014 Winter Olympics. The first Cup of Hope was won by Dinamo Riga.
==Regular season==
The regular season started on 4 September 2012 with the Lokomotiv Cup between the finalists of the previous season, Dynamo Moscow and Avangard Omsk and ended on 17 February 2013 after every team has played 52 matches.
===Notable events===
====NHL lockout====
The league set up rules for the NHL lockout which lasted 16 September 2012 to early January 2013. According to the special regulations, each KHL team was allowed to add up to 3 NHL players to their roster, among them at most one foreign player.
====Proposed matches in New York====
Two regular season games between Dynamo Moscow and SKA Saint Petersburg were planned to take place in the new Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York in January 2013. However, the KHL reverted this decision in October 2012 and thus these matches were played in Russia.
====All-star game====
The 5th KHL all-star game was played on 13 January 2013 in Chelyabinsk, with Team East, captained by Aleksey Morozov, winning 18–11 over Team West, captained by Ilya Kovalchuk.
===League standings===
Source: KHL.ru
Points are awarded as follows:
*3 Points for a win in regulation ("W")
*2 Points for a win in overtime ("OTW") or a penalty shootout ("SOW")
*1 Point for a loss in overtime ("OTL") or a penalty shootout ("SOL")
*0 Points for a loss in regulation ("L")
The conference standings determine the seedings for the play-offs. The first two places in each conference are reserved for the division winners.
====Western Conference====
R 	 	Div	GP	W 	OTW	SOW	SOL	OTL	L 	GF 	GA 	Pts
1 	c – SKA Saint Petersburg	BOB	52	36	1 	1 	2 	1 	11	182	116	115
2 	y – CSKA Moscow 	TAR	52	23	5 	8 	1 	0 	15	151	109	96
3 	Dynamo Moscow 	BOB	52	27	3 	6 	1 	1 	14	150	115	101
4 	Lokomotiv Yaroslavl 	TAR	52	24	2 	8 	0 	0 	18	131	121	92
5 	Severstal Cherepovets 	TAR	52	21	1 	6 	3 	5 	16	137	117	85
6 	Slovan Bratislava 	BOB	52	17	3 	8 	5 	0 	19	124	127	78
7 	Lev Prague 	BOB	52	23	0 	1 	2 	3 	23	132	133	76
8 	Atlant Moscow Oblast 	TAR	52	19	1 	3 	4 	4 	21	137	141	73
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
9 	HC Donbass 	BOB	52	17	2 	5 	6 	1 	21	134	142	72
10	Dinamo Minsk 	TAR	52	18	5 	1 	2 	3 	23	125	148	71
11	Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod 	TAR	52	19	0 	2 	4 	4 	23	142	146	69
12	Vityaz Chekhov 	BOB	52	11	1 	6 	6 	2 	26	119	151	55
13	Spartak Moscow 	TAR	52	11	4 	2 	5 	2 	28	106	151	52
14	Dinamo Riga 	BOB	52	13	2 	2 	2 	2 	31	109	151	51
y – Won division; c – Won Continental Cup (best record in KHL);
BOB – Bobrov Division, TAR – Tarasov Division
Source: khl.ru
====Eastern Conference====
R 	 	Div	GP	W 	OTW	SOW	SOL	OTL	L 	GF 	GA 	Pts
1 	z – Ak Bars Kazan 	KHA	52	28	1 	5 	5 	3 	10	157	112	104
2 	y – Avangard Omsk 	CHE	52	26	6 	3 	4 	2 	11	149	121	102'''
3 	Traktor Chelyabinsk 	KHA	52	28	0 	3 	6 	2 	13	152	120	98
4 	Metallurg Magnitogorsk 	KHA	52	27	0 	0 	7 	5 	13	167	121	93
5 	Salavat Yulaev Ufa 	CHE	52	24	2 	3 	6 	0 	17	148	140	88
6 	Barys Astana 	CHE	52	23	3 	2 	2 	4 	18	175	161	85
7 	Sibir Novosibirsk 	CHE	52	21	1 	5 	4 	3 	17	124	119	84
8 	Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk 	KHA	52	17	5 	5 	4 	2 	19	144	150	77
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
9 	Yugra Khanty-Mansiysk 	KHA	52	19	4 	3 	3 	0 	23	153	163	74
10	Metallurg Novokuznetsk 	CHE	52	15	3 	1 	3 	2 	28	132	177	58
11	Amur Khabarovsk 	CHE	52	11	1 	4 	1 	0 	35	115	167	44
12	Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg	KHA	52	7 	0 	1 	7 	5 	32	104	180	35
y – Won division; z – Won conference (and division); 
CHE – Chernyshev Division, KHA – Kharlamov Division
Source: khl.ru
==Playoffs==
The playoffs started on 20 February 2013 with the top eight teams from both conferences and ended on 17 April with the last game of the Gagarin Cup final.
During the first three rounds home ice was determined by seeding number within the Conference, not position on the bracket. In the Finals the team with better seeding number had home ice advantage. If the seeding numbers were equal, the regular season record was taken into account.KHL Sports Regulations 2011-2014, revised
==Nadezhda Cup==
Preliminary round
*Dinamo Riga vs Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod(4–1, 3–4, Riga wins extra overtime)
*Spartak Moscow vs Vityaz Chekhov (2–2, 1–0)
== Final standings ==
Bold indicates playoff team.
Rank	Team
1 	Dynamo Moscow
2 	Traktor Chelyabinsk
3 	SKA Saint Petersburg
4 	Ak Bars Kazan
5 	Avangard Omsk
6 	CSKA Moscow
7 	Salavat Yulaev Ufa
8 	Severstal Cherepovets
9 	Metallurg Magnitogorsk
10 	Lokomotiv Yaroslavl
11 	Barys Astana
12 	Sibir Novosibirsk
13 	Slovan Bratislava
14 	Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk
15 	Lev Prague
16 	Atlant Moscow Oblast
17 	Yugra Khanty-Mansiysk
18 	HC Donbass
19 	Dinamo Minsk
20 	Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod
21 	Metallurg Novokuznetsk
22 	Vityaz Chekhov
23 	Spartak Moscow
24 	Dinamo Riga
25 	Amur Khabarovsk
26 	Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg
==References==
Category:2012 in ice hockey
Category:2013 in ice hockey