Dragons in review: player performance
6 April 2025
A look at some of the highlights from the 2024/25 season
Well, the 2024/25 season ended a little earlier than we hoped. Nonetheless, there were some highlights from the campaign. In the coming days[AP1] , we’ll be looking back at some of the best goals, saves and games from the regular season.
Before that, though, let’s pick out some of the players who led the way on our team this term.
Tyler Graovac – top scorer
“Gravy” was our leading scorer this season, with 36 (15+21) points from 67 games. He also became only the fifth Red Star player to score a hat-trick in the KHL, notching a treble in our 5-2 win at Sochi on Feb. 24 (as a team, we have six hatties, with Brandon Yip potting two of them). With Tyler, it’s not just about scoring: he also showed great enthusiasm for doing the dirty work. According to the KHL’s smart puck stats, Graovac led the team in puck wins (605) and traffic created (90) on top of the more visible goals and assists. He also covered more distance on the ice than any other player – a whopping 313,720 m skated over the course of the season – equivalent to more than seven marathons!
Spencer Foo – most goals
Our captain continues to lead from the front and his 17 goals led the way for the Dragons this term. It wasn’t the easiest of seasons for our long-serving forward, who missed a few games through injury and also saw his established family partnership with disrupted by a longer layoff for his brother, Parker. But consistency didn’t waver: Spencer had an assist in our first game of the season and potted our final goal of the campaign last weekend. He was also clocked as our fastest player of the year, timed at 39.3 km/h.
Adam Clendening – top-scoring defenseman
Summer brought a bit of a reshuffle on defense and the arrival of Adam Clendening was a huge of that. And he didn’t disappoint. Always a powerful presence on the blue line, he led the D-core in scoring with 22 (5+17) points from 61 games. And the other stats, weren’t too shabby either, leading the team with 1,772 completed passes and carrying the puck more than 17 km over the course of the campaign. Throw in 95 blocked shots and a team-leading average ice time of 23:44 each night and you’ve got a rock-solid rookie campaign.
Tomas Jurco – pass master
Back for a second spell in the Dragons’ Lair, Tomas picked up where he left off. Our Slovak forward is blessed with great hockey smarts and vision and he used that effectively all season. His eye for a pass had him quarterbacking our offense throughout the season, bringing 20 assists from 55 games and 896 completed passes – more than any other forward.
Doyle Somerby – Mr. Reliable
With 140 blocked shots, Doyle cracked the top 10 in this season’s KHL. And that kind of self-sacrificing game helped him finish with a +1 plus/minus rating. Only Yury Pautov did better among our defensemen. And it was a good season all round for our American blue liner, who returned 14 (5+9) points, his best return in three years on the team. An honorable mention here for another hard-hitting American defenseman. Ian McCoshen’s debut season with Red Star saw him deliver 113 hits, good for 11th place overall in the KHL.
Luke Lockhart – never-ending story
One game short of ever-present, Luke maintains his Iron Man status by extending his lead in all-time appearances for the Dragons. After 67 games here, he’s up to 446 times in the Red and Gold. That’s 106 more than Brandon Yip in second place on the all-time list. For context, this season brought up Red Star’s 500th game in the KHL. Currently, we’ve played 557 times, including playoffs. So Luke has featured in exactly 80% of our entire competitive history! In addition, for the second season in a row Lockie posted his best ever stats. This year, he had 33 (16+17) points, placing him third in team scoring behind Graovac and Foo. That helped him stay second all-time in goals and points behind Yipper and ahead of Spencer Foo. Just for good measure, he also fired in our hardest shot of the season at 172.5 km/h.
Kyle Rau – PPG leader
The Rau family has played its part in KRS history. Chad Rau was the leading scorer in our first season, and this term we signed up his younger brother Kyle for the closing stages. And, true to the family trade, he got his name on the scoresheet. In just 20 appearances he had 11 (6+5) points, for a ppg of 0.55. That was enough to lead the team, ahead of Jan Drozg and Tomas Jurco.
Jeremy Smith – the hardest-working goalie in hockey
Once again, Smitty was an immovable object in our net. With 43 games this season, he was tied for 10th with Yegor Zavragin (SKA/Sochi). That’s his heaviest workload yet in a season of superlatives. Smitty stopped a career-best 1,182 shots (up from 1,134 in 2022/23) on his way to 16 wins (previous best 11 in 2019/20). Four shut-outs, another KHL career best, saw him become the first goalie to record 10 shut-outs for the club. And all while maintaining a solid save ratio of 0.91. Despite strong competition from Kyle Keyser and, latterly, Patrik Rybar, Smith remains a fan favorite and #1.
Leave a Reply