The final starts here
23 teams started the campaign, just two are left. The Gagarin Cup final starts Tuesday in Yaroslavl. Read on for all you need to know about the biggest games of the 2024/2025 KHL season.
Loko vs Traktor
The Gagarin Cup Final starts tomorrow – and it promises to be a cracker. For the first time in KHL history, the two Conference-topping teams are going head-to-head to settle the big prize. For Lokomotiv, Continental Cup winner and Western Conference leader, it’s a chance to improve on last year’s loss at this stage to Metallurg. From the East, Traktor is back in the final for the first time since 2013. Neither team has won the cup before, one will make history in the next couple of weeks.
The Road to the Final: Lokomotiv
Igor Nikitin’s Lokomotiv was the first team to secure its place in the final, wrapping up a 4-1 series win over Salavat Yulaev. A burgeoning partnership between veteran Alexander Radulov and youngster Yegor Surin settled things in game five: they scored two goals each, with Radulov assisting on both of Surin’s tallies to send the Railwaymen to a third Gagarin Cup final. There’s a 20-year age gap between the two; 18-year-old Surin wasn’t even born last time Lokomotiv national champion back in 2003.
The Road to the Final: Traktor
Next day, Traktor booked its place after seeing off Dynamo Moscow in five games. Maxim Shabanov scored twice, moving to second in the post season scoring race with 18 (9+9) points after grabbing a late winner in a 4-3 game. But the Muscovites can point to misfortune in Chelyabinsk. With the game locked at 1-1, goalie Vladislav Podyapolsky left the action due to injury. Coming in cold, his replacement Maxim Motorygin allowed two goals in three minutes to give Traktor the edge.
Groulx reaches final in first season
Traktor head coach Benoit Groulx is the 11th KHL head coach to take a team to the final in his first season behind the bench. Among that elite group, six went on to win the cup that season – including the first foreign coach to do so, Mike Keenan with Metallurg in 2014. Bob Hartley, the other North American to triumph in the KHL, took his Avangard team to the final in his first season in 2019, but had to wait until 2021 to get his hands on the prize.
Back-to-back for Loko
It’s the fifth time we’ve seen a team reach back-to-back Gagarin Cup finals. Lokomotiv follows in the footsteps of Ak Bars (2008, 2009), Dynamo (2012, 2013), Metallurg (2016, 2017) and CSKA (five in a row from 2019 to 2023, with the 2020 season curtailed due to COVID). Encouragingly for Yaroslavl, no team has failed to win at least one of its back-to-back final appearances. However, Lokomotiv did lose back-to-back finals in 2008 (Russian Superleague) and 2009 (Gagarin Cup), having previously celebrated a championship repeat in 2002 and 2003.
Traktor targets first title
Although Chelyabinsk is a hockey heartland in Russia, and Traktor one of the country’s oldest teams, it has never won a national championship. The closest attempt was in 2013, when a team boasting the emerging talents of Evgeny Kuznetsov and Valery Nichushkin got to the final but lost in six games to Dynamo. A young Maxim Shalunov played one game for Traktor that season – and is now looking to fire Lokomotiv past his hometown team.
Junior final set
Gagarin starts on Tuesday, but before that the Kharlamov Cup final gets underway today. The Junior Hockey League finale pits Spartak against SKA-1946.
Russia-25 finishes with win
After a mixed bag of results in its May series of challenge games, Russia 25 finished on a winning note on Thursday with a 3-1 win over Belarus in Minsk. SKA forward Sergei Plotnikov scored twice, sandwiching a goal from Neftekhimik’s Vladislav Leontyev. Severstal’s Alexander Skorenov got the Belarusian consolation. Earlier in the week, the Belarusians enjoyed two victories over Russia: an 8-7 OT thriller in Togliatti on Monday, followed by a 3-1 win powered by Vitaly Pinchuk’s hat-trick.
World Championship underway
The opening weekend of World Championship action saw KHL involvement. Much of Team Kazakhstan was active in the league last season, and the Kazakhs made a winning start against Norway on Saturday before losing to Germany on Sunday. Roman Starchenko (Barys) and Nikita Mikhailis (Metallurg) were among the goals for their country at the tournament in Herning, Denmark. Other active KHLers in action include Admiral’s Slovak defenseman Mario Grman, who had an assist in his country’s 3-1 win over Slovenia on Sunday. Kunlun Red Star goalie Patrik Rybar also featured for Slovakia in an opening 0-5 loss against Sweden in Stockholm but was scratched for the Slovenia game. As a result he missed out on facing his KRS clubmate Jan Drozg in that game.
