Dragons shock Dynamo; derby wins for Omsk, Avto. September 4 round-up

Kunlun Red Star produced the first big shock of the 2024-2025 KHL season with a 3-1 victory Dynamo Moscow. It’s the first time the Dragons have beaten the Blue-and-Whites in regulation, with a great goal by debutant Nail Yakupov helping to defeat last term’s regular-season champ. Elsewhere, Avangard won its Siberian derby against Sibir, while Avtomobilist frustrated Benoit Groulx in his first game as Traktor head coach. There were road wins for Neftekhimik at Barys, Severstal at Torpedo and Admiral at Vityaz.

Galiyev steps up for Avangard’s injury-hit offense

Avangard Omsk 2 Sibir Novosibirsk 1 (1-0, 0-1, 1-0)

The season in Omsk began with a Siberian derby. For Avangard, it was a first competitive game without injured forwards Vladimir Tkachyov and Reid Boucher; Sibir played its first KHL action under new head coach Vadim Yepanchintsev.

Both teams create early chances, with Cole Cassels close to a debut goal for the host before Nikita Korotkov tested Pavel Khomchenko in the Hawks’ net. Khomchenko was even busier when Sibir got the first power play of the game, but when Korotkov went to the box Avangard got ahead. It took some team for the power play to engage, but once it established play in Sibir’s territory, Stanislav Galiyev’s one-timer made it 1-0.

The middle frame started with chaotic hockey all over the ice. Out of chaos came, if not order, a tying goal: Khomchenko unwisely swatted at a puck coming frombehind his net and Georgy Belousov pounced to score. Avangard responding by raising the tempo but struggled to generate real danger for Anton Krasotkin in the Sibir net.

With the game deadlocked, the third period produced some cautious hockey. Neither team was willing to risk, but gradually nerves got to Sibir. Errors led to a penalty for Pavel Gogolev and the home PP did its job again. Alexei Makeyev wasted a great chance to score into an empty net, but young Ilya Reingardt spared his blushes when he converted Galiyev’s well-placed pass. That proved to be the winner: a good start for Omsk, and a great one for 20-year-old Reingardt, widely tipped for a break-out campaign this season.

Alikin denies Groulx debut KHL win

Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg 3 Traktor Chelyabinsk 2 (1-1, 2-1, 0-0)

There was more derby action in the Urals as Avtomobilist entertained Traktor. Both teams reached last season’s semi-finals, but while the Motormen aimed for stability over the summer, Traktor changed it up and appointed Canadian head coach Benoit Groulx.

In turn, Groulx spent the summer giving opportunities to Traktor’s prospects and that carried on in the season opener, with 20-year-old Alexei Rykmanov making his KHL debut alongside Maxim Shabanov and Vladimir Tkachyov on the top line.

Avtomobilist created an entirely North American line of new signing Brendan Leipsic with Curtis Valk and Brooks Macek, while fellow newcomer Nick Merkley joined Alexei Byvaltsev and Andrei Obidin.

Traktor had the best pre-season record of any KHL team and carried on that style at the start of this game. It’s vertical hockey with active pressing, ensuring the puck spends most of its time at the opposite end of the ice. But Avtomobilist was ready for this and defended strongly, limiting the visitor to long-range shots.

And when the home team got its first power play, Leipsic took advantage to get his first goal for his new club. The lead didn’t last long, though: just 19 seconds later Alexaner Sharov’s shot bounced into the net off Vladimir Kuznetsov to make it 1-1.

The middle frame began more cautiously, with Avto in particular struggling to generate shots on goal. Traktor had more possession but could do little with it. Worse followed: a power play went astray and, not for the first time under Groulx, we saw a short-handed counterattack find success as Valk and Stepan Khripunov combined to score.

Traktor’s next power play opportunity lasted three minutes, half of which was spent with a two-man advantage, but still delivered no success. Back at equal strength we saw a crazy shift with Nick Ebert missing a great chance at one end before home goalie Evgeny Alikin pulled off a last-gasp save at the other. Ebert made up for his earlier miss with an accurate point shot to make it 3-1, but the final minute of the session saw Shabanov set up Vitaly Kravtsov and set up a one-goal game for the third.

The sight of Shabanov and Kravtsov together was a symptom of Groulx changing up three of his lines. That continued in the third, with Traktor dominating the play. The visitor peppered Alikin’s net with shots, but it wasn’t until late in the game that quality was added to quantity. The home goalie put on a masterclass to preserve his team’s lead, making 17 stops in the final frame and 46 in total to secure an opening night win.

Wolves win in OT

Barys Astana 1 Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk 2 OT (0-0, 1-0, 0-1, 0-1)

The first overtime of the season came in Astana, where Barys lost a 1-0 lead and fell to Neftekhimik in the extras. This was David Nemirovsky’s first championship game in charge of the Kazakhs, and he also had several debutants on his roster, including Damir Zhafyarov, Mike McLeod and Anton Burdasov. Defenseman Luka Profaca was the big new addition for the Wolves.

In the early stages there were too many individual errors and not enough fluent play. It wasn’t until midway through the first that the quality started to pick up. Both teams took the initiative at times, but neither could assert themselves to the point of opening the scoring. In the absence of goals, the home crowd could at least enjoy McLeod’s dominance on the draw as he won seven out of eight face-offs.

In the second stanza, McLeod picked up his first point in the KHL, collecting a secondary assist after fellow newcomer Will Butcher’s feed presented Wade Ellison with a debut goal.

However, Neftekhimik found a way back in the third. Johan Mattsson was regularly called into action and he was finally beaten midway through the session when Vladimir Bryukvin tied the game. That momentum carried into overtime, and Jean-Sebastien Dea got a two-on-one break to win it for Neftekhimik.

Samoilov blanks Torpedo

Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod 0 Severstal Cherepovets 3 (0-1, 0-1, 0-1)

Last season, Severstal set a team record for regular season goals. Today, it claimed the first shut-out of the new campaign. If Andrei Kozyrev’s team can add defensive rigor to its attacking flair, this could be a promising campaign in Cherepovets.

Goalie Alexander Samoilov proved to be the difference in an otherwise evenly-matched game at Torpedo. Both teams had 29 shots on target, but Samoilov stopped everything that came his way to backstop the victory. That included a penalty shot early in the second from Bobby Lynch when the home team could have tied the game. Torpedo, a team that also likes to play offense-first hockey, will hope that today’s blank is an aberration rather than an indication.

At the other end, Danil Aimurzin got the big goals. He opened the scoring for Severstal in the third minute. Then he doubled the lead midway through the second. Both were assisted by Kirill Pilipenko. Torpedo continued to press, but not even its power play – and it had six attempts with a man advantage – could find a breakthrough. The finale was almost inevitable. The home team withdrew goalie Ivan Kulbakov and Severstal added a third: Alexei Kruchinin, who joined from Torpedo in the summer, simply rubbed salt into the wound with 30 seconds to play.

Admiral fends off fightback

Vityaz Moscow Region 2 Admiral Vladivostok 3 (0-1, 2-2, 0-0)

Admiral started the season with victory thanks to a strong first half-hour against Vityaz. The Sailors opened a 3-0 lead in that time, but then had to withstand a fightback in Balashikha before escaping with a 3-2 verdict.

In an even first period, Vityaz had more attacking possession but Admiral had more shots. And, crucially, more goals. After 15 minutes a two-on-one rush saw Daniil Gutik put the visitor up.

Early in the second, home goalie Dmitry Shikin took a puck to the helmet. Play stopped, but perhaps not for quite long enough: a few seconds later he was beaten by Libor Sulak as Admiral doubled the lead. And, on 29:33 Jack Rodewald got a debut goal for his new club to make it 3-0 and force Pavel Desyatkov to call a time-out.

The Vityaz head coach is new in the league, but he found the right words at that moment. Within a minute, Dean Stewart had a debut goal and his team had a way back into the game. The path became clearer at the end of the middle frame when Dmitry Buchelnikov, a young signing who carries great expectations, got it back to 2-3.

But the intermission came at the right time for Admiral. Leonids Tambijevs’ team regrouped and did the necessary in the third. The Sailors were content to yield possession to the opposition, confident that they could keep Vityaz to the perimeter. That tactic worked: more than seven minutes of time on the attack resulted in just eight shots at Vasily Demchenko. Admiral secured a 3-2 verdict to make a winning start to the season.

Yakupov’s debut goal hands the Dragons victory

Dynamo Moscow 1 Kunlun Red Star 3 (1-0, 0-2, 0-1)

Nail Yakupov, one of the most enigmatic players in Russian hockey, produced a stunning debut goal for Kunlun as the Dragons shocked Dynamo Moscow in the teams’ opening game of the season.

Dynamo, regular season champion last time out, would surely have been aware that there’s a new optimism around Red Star this time. But the Muscovites would also have expected a team stacked with firepower to be more than capable of getting a winning start against opposition likely to be in a battle to sneak into the top eight.

However, KRS confounded expectation. A resilient first period offered little for the Blue-and-Whites to build on. Even the much-vaunted home power play, which ran at 25% with the same personnel last season, found it tough: in the first period, it failed to register a shot at Jeremy Smith, and in the second it allowed a short-handed goal to Colin Campbell.

That tally cancelled out an opener from Nikita Gusev 12 seconds before the intermission. However, it would be a harsh verdict to say that Red Star deserved to be behind in the game.

And, as the middle frame progressed further, Yakupov produced his big moment. In the past, critics have suggested that Nail is all flare and not enough graft. Here, he proved that he can do both: twice he took the puck off an opponent. First, he saw a shot turned behind. Then he went to do the dirty work in the trapezoid and emerged to score on the wraparound. If KRS head coach Mikhail Kravets can unlock that level of skill and workrate, this could be a big season for Yakupov and his team.

In the third, not surprisingly, Dynamo piled forward in search of a tying goal. Jeremy Smith was suddenly far busier than fellow import Hunter Miska at the other end. Smith, of course, is used to this: several years with Kunlun brings a heavy workload. He did his job as reliably as ever, and as Miska tried to leave the ice in the closing moments a Red Star breakaway saw Parker Foo complete the win.