Just when you thought last year’s benching of head coach Wayne Fleming was the peak of Anatoly Bardin’s insanity, the man pulling the strings for KHL club Avangard Omsk proves that he still has tricks up his sleeve. On the eve of his club’s first round playoff series against ninth seeded Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk, Bardin announced on Wednesday that he had replaced head coach Igor Nikitin with former Finnish national team coach Raimo Summanen.

Nikitin had held the post since Fleming was fired in January 2009.  He’ll remain with the club in the role of Senior Coach, the position he held before taking over for Fleming.  He’ll be joined in that role by Vasily Tikhonov, son of Soviet legend Viktor Tikhonov and father to Phoenix Coyotes prospect Viktor Tikhonov.  The rest of the coaching and training staff remains the same.

Summanen arrives in Omsk having played a combination of 151 NHL games with the Edmonton Oilers and Vancouver Canucks.  In 1995 he was part of the Finland’s only World Championship team to date, and he went on to coach the country’s national team to a second place finish in the 2004 World Cup of Hockey.  In 2002 he won the Kalevi Numminen trophy as the top coach in Finland’s SM-liga.

The reason given for the coaching change was Avangard’s poor finish in the regular season.  The club closed the season with a 2-5-0-2 stretch to finish eleventh in the KHL’s overall standings.

You can watch Numminen’s debut (and the start of Jaromir Jagr’s quest for the Gagarin Cup) live at 11:00am EST Thursday.

The KHL completed its sophomore season on Sunday and kicks off its sixteen team competition for the Gagarin Cup today.  The first round will be a best of five series, with the following match-ups.

SKA St. Petersburg (2) vs. Dinamo Riga (13)
Head coach Barry Smith leads a group of former NHLers that includes Robert Esche, Sergei Zubov, and Alexei Yashin against Dinamo Riga, which is led by former New York Ranger Marcel Hossa, who finished the regular season leading the league with 35 goals and added 19 assists for 54 points in 56 games.  Games 3/10, 3/11, 3/13, if necessary 3/14 & 3/16.

Watch 3/10 (11:00am EST)
Watch 3/11 (11:00am EST)

HK MVD (4) vs. CSKA Moscow (12)
Rangers 2009 seventh round draft pick defenseman Mikhail Pashnin will get his first taste of playoff action after finishing his rookie season with a goal and four assists in 44 games.  Columbus prospect Nikita Filatov will look to make an impression up front after picking up 22 points in in 26 games after leaving the NHL.  Games 3/10, 3/11, 3/13, if necessary 3/14 & 3/16. Games 3/10, 3/11, 3/13, if necessary 3/14 & 3/16.

Watch 3/10 (11:30am EST)
Watch 3/11 (11:30am EST)

Dynamo Moscow (5) vs. Spartak Moscow (10)
Expect a spirited grudge match between to clubs with a history of not liking each other.  Rangers property Ivan Baranka led the Spartak defense corps in points with 32 in 55 games, a mark good for fifth among defenseman in the entire league.  On the other side, fellow Ranger prospect Pavel Valentenko managed to get into only seven matches this season due to injury.  Now apparently healthy, it’s not clear if the defenseman will be able to push his way back into the line-up unless Dynamo suffers an injury.  Games 3/10, 3/11, 3/13, if necessary 3/14 & 3/16.

Watch 3/11 (11:30am EST)

Atlant Mystishchi (6) vs. Lokomotiv Yarolslavl (7)
Nikolai Zherdev, who finished third on Atlant in scoring with 39 points in 52 games, behind league scoring leader Sergei Mozyakin and former Montreal Canadien Jan Bulis, will look to improve his chances of an NHL return with a strong playoff run.  Games 3/10, 3/11, 3/13, if necessary 3/14 & 3/16.

Watch 3/10 (11:30am EST)

Salavat Yulaev (1) vs. Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg (19)
Head coach Vyacheslav Bykov and assistant Igor Zakharkin hope to prove Russia’s Olymic disaster was a fluke by getting past the first round this season.  Last year, their top-ranked club was knocked out early by Jaromir Jagr and 16th seed Avangard Omsk.  Games 3/11, 3/12, 3/14, if necessary, 3/15 & 3/17.

Watch 3/11 (9:00am EST)
Watch 3/12 (9:00am EST)

Metallurg Magnitogorsk (3) vs. Traktor Chelyabinsk (18)
Sergei Fedorov and little brother FedFed look to lead Metallurg over Traktor, a team I admittedly know absolutely  nothing about. Games 3/11, 3/12, 3/14, if necessary, 3/15 & 3/17.

Watch 3/12 (9:00am EST)

AK Bars Kazan (8) vs. Barys Astana (14)
Last year’s champs, now featuring former Rangers prospect Jarkko Immonen, who finished his first KHL campaign with 38 points in 56 games, take on a team led by former NHLer Jozef Stumpel. Games 3/11, 3/12, 3/14, if necessary, 3/15 & 3/17.

Watch 3/11 (11:00am EST)
Watch 3/12 (11:00am EST)

Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk (9) vs. Avangard Omsk (11)
Jagr begins his drive for the Gagarin Cup with Tampa Bay’s Karri Ramo backing him up in net.  Sergei Demagin, who spent training camp with the Rangers two seasons ago, suits up for Neftekhimik.  Games 3/11, 3/12, 3/14, if necessary, 3/15 & 3/17.

Watch 3/11 (11:00am EST)
Watch 3/12 (11:00am EST)

This was written in about a half an hour, so I’m sure there are far more interesting storylines I’m overlooking.  But I wanted to get the links to the live video broadcasts up for folks who want to watch.  I’ll do my best to update this post with links for future games as they become available each night.

Photo: Slocum/AP

Since his arrival in Vancouver, Jaromir Jagr has artfully dodged questions about what his future holds, no matter what language they’ve been asked in.  Last weekend, in an interview with Pavel Lysenkov of Sovietsky Sport, the queries came in Russian.  While once again managing to avoid answering the question on everyone’s mind — with a characteristic laugh and a smile — Jagr made it clear he’s traveled to the Olympics with the goal of bringing home a gold medal.  And he capped the conversation off with a bold prediction.

- You carried carried the Czech flag in the opening ceremony.  What were your impressions?

- I don’t even remember when I last experienced something like that.  Bearing the flag of your country is a huge honor for any athlete. Especially when you’re a hockey player, and the event takes place in Canada. I know that the flag bearers were guys who are familiar to me — Morozov, Forsberg — but it wasn’t possible to talk with them, I was with my own delegation.

- Did you like the ceremony?

- Of course!  Even more so when you see it from the inside. Though, it seemed dragged out to me. And I was surprised when Wayne Gretzky lit the Olympic flame.  It was kept a secret, and I didn’t expect it.

- Have you already acclimatized yourself to Vancouver?

- It was even more difficult for me because first I was in Omsk — that’s a time difference of plus three hours with Moscow. Then I was in the Czech Republic — that’s minus two hours time difference.  And then we flew to Vancouver.  It’s always difficult to calculate how many hours.  But with every day it gets better and better for me.  By the beginning of the Olympics I should be in perfect order.  Especially since I tried to train in the evenings in the Czech Republic so that I could get used to the new time zone more quickly.

- What do you think of the formula of the tournament?

- It’s very complicated.  And not just because we have to play 6-7 difficult games in 12 days.  Its impossible to start poorly here. Then you get caught in back-to-back games, [and] that’s not very good.  You need to win first place in the group.  Though that’s not an end in itself.  The Olympics are a tournament of one game, in fact.  Win the quarterfinal — you almost have a medal.  Lose — you go home feeling disappointed.

- How will you conduct yourself during the Games?  Are you shut off, don’t give interviews?  Or, on the contrary, do you communicate with people, participate in public activities, enjoy the fact that you have found yourself at such a tournament?

- I try to be a professional.  I give interviews, at the appropriate time.  The rest [of the time], I rest, restore my strength.  I don’t waste my time on trifles.  I didn’t come here for fun.  Surely this is the last international tournament in my career.

- You said that you’re going to play 6-7 games in Vancouver.  Do you see the Czechs in the final?

- I’d be a big optimist if I called the Czech Republic the main favorite of the Olympics.  But I want to leave here with gold.  And I’ll do everything for that [purpose].  If we lose in the semifinal than I’ll tell you my purpose is bronze, and will go for that.  You have to be a maximalist.  We’ll play in a group with Russia.  But the champion won’t be decided then.  If we meet in the play-off — guys, it’s just one game.  And victory isn’t guaranteed to you at all.

- Why have you traveled to the Olympics by military plane from a NATO base?

- I suppose we wanted to show our strength, - smiled Jagr slyly.

- How is your health?  You were injured in one of your last games in the KHL.

- You can see, it wasn’t serious.  Otherwise would I carry on like this during practice?

- Is it true that next season you could return to the NHL?

- Would you like me to leave Russia even sooner? - Jagr burst out laughing.

- Quite the contrary.  But there are rumors.  And the Olympics are a great opportunity to prove yourself.  And I know that all the management of Edmonton, where they’ve been inviting you for a long time, will come to Vancouver.

- I can be invited anywhere.  But I’ll make a decision only after a few months, when I win Gagarin’s Cup [the KHL's championship trophy] with Avangard.

- A bold statement.

- But I believe in it.