Three NHL players playing in Russia's top league, the KHL, during the lockout -- the New Jersey Devils' Ilya Kovalchuk, Columbus Blue Jackets' Sergei Bobrovsky and St. Louis Blues' Valdimir Tarasenko -- are members of the SKA squad that currently leads the league's West conference.
2012 KHL standings: Ilya Kovalchuk and SKA Saint Petersburg move to top of league
A look at the current standings in Europe’s top hockey league, the KHL. With the NHL still in a labor dispute, many of the U.S. league’s top players have moved over to the KHL temporarily.
Jayne Kamin-Oncea-US PRESSWIRE
Alex Ovechkin and Dynamo Moscow are actually tied with SKA on points, with 61, but currently sit in third place due to fewer wins. CSKA Moscow, which features Philadelphia Flyers' goalie Ilya Bryzgalov, Detroit's Pavel Datsyuk and Toronto's Mikhail Grabovski, are a distant fourth place with 51 points.
In the East conference, Avangard Omsk has a two-point lead on Ak Bars Kazan. Colombus' Nikita Nikitin is the only NHL player on Avangard's roster. Pittsburgh's Evgeni Malkin and Ottawa's Sergei Gonchar lead fourht-place Metallurg Magnitogorsk, just four points back of the conference leaders.
Check out the full standings below, the top eight teams in each conference will make the playoffs.
West
1. SKA Saint Petersburg (61 points)
2. Lokomotiv Yaroslavl (58)
3. Dynamo Moscow (61)
4. CSKA Moscow (51)
5. Slovan Bratislava (44)
6. Severstal Cherepovets (41)
7. Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod (40)
8. Lev Praha (38)
9. Donbass Donetsk (34)
10. Dinamo Minsk (33)
11. Vityaz Chekhov (30)
12. Dinamo Riga (29)
13. Spartak Moscow (29)
14. Atlant Moscow Region (28)
East
1. Avangard Omsk Region (59 points)
2. Ak Bars Kazan (57)
3. Traktor Chelyabinsk (56)
4. Metallurg Magnitogorsk (55)
5. Salavat Yulaev Ufa (48)
6. Sibir Novosibirsk (46)
7. Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk (43)
8. Barys Astana (40)
9. Metallurg Novokuznetsk (40)
10. Yugra Khanty-Mansiysk (39)
11. Amur Khabarovsk (29)
12. Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg (18)
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