Review of the Season. Kunlun Red Star: a new approach, but an unsuccessful bid for the playoffs
KHL.ru continues its club-by-club review of the 2024/2025 season with a look at Kunlun Red Star. Under the guidance of Mikhail Kravets, the Dragons won 28 games but that wasn’t enough to break into the top eight.
The start of the season was promising for KRS – the Dragons won their opening two games and Nail Yakupov, who joined the club in August, made an immediate impact. “Then we started playing badly. At that time, several players were still adapting to the league, beginning to understand how to play, what to do, how to behave,” Kravets said after the season. “We didn’t have the right philosophy. Having a good time was more important than winning hockey games.”
Kravets worked with the club’s managements to implement the right approach for his team. Kunlun appointed a new captain and reshuffled its roster during the season. Some players were traded away, others reinforcements arrived. That brought results over the New Year period when Kunlun went on a club record seven-game winning streak and roared back into playoff contention.
However, in the closing stages the Dragons could not catch Torpedo. In the end, there was a nine-point gap to eighth place. Notably, the head-to-head record between the playoff rivals was firmly in Torpedo’s favor – Kunlun won just one of their four games.
Best players
During the season, Foo took over as captain from Brandon Yip. That extra responsibility didn’t prevent him from celebrating his most productive KHL season. Spencer finished with 35 (17+18) points from 63 games. He potted three game-winners along the way.
Kunlun’s all-time appearance leader (446 games), and second top scorer (143 points) also enjoyed his best season. He finished the 2024/2025 campaign with 33 (16+17) points. And Lockhart sealed his status as a true Iron Man on this team, setting a club record of 153 games without a break. That run came to an end in the final game of the season, which Luke missed for family reasons.
A living legend at KRS, Smith had yet another great season. He set personal bests for wins (16) and shut-outs (4) in a KHL campaign. He made 40+ saves in five games last season.
Coaching
In 2024/2025 Mikhail Kravets was behind the Red Star bench. He guided the team to 28 victories, matching the club's best ever back in 2016/2017. Even so, the club opted not to take up the option for a second year with Kravets, who originally signed a 1+1 contract.
Best game
On Oct. 1, Kunlun travelled to Ufa. In the first period, Salavat Yulaev dominated. The home team outshot the Dragons 12-5, but could not make the breakthrough. In the second period, pressure turned into goals and a 2-0 advantage looked decisive. However, in the final frame Kunlun turned everything around with five unanswered goals. Tyler Graovac, the team’s leading scorer last season, tied it up with two goals, and Luke Lockhart finished the game with 3 (1+2) points.
Young players
Kunlun’s coaching staff made relatively frequent use of three U23 players – forwards Semyon Sinyatkin and Stepan Zvyagin, plus defenseman Alexei Kozhevnikov.
Sinyatkin played 17 games, averaging seven minutes on the ice and failed to pick up any points. Zvyagin and Kozhevnikov came to Red Star on loan from Dinamo Minsk and Lokomotiv respectively. Zvyagin made 27 appearances with a similar seven minutes of average ice time, and had 3 (2+1) points. Kozhevnikov, 22, also played 27 times for Kunlun. His average ice time was 12:17, he made one assist and finished with a -7 rating.
Summer objectives
Kunlun typically enters the market later than other KHL clubs, preferring to wait until the end of the season for all leagues in North America. Thus there is no news from the Dragons yet, although there is plenty of work ahead with most of last year’s key players now out of contract.
There are agreements with five players for the coming season: goalie Jeremy Smith, Austin Wong, the Foo brothers and Brandon Yip. However, it’s far from certain that we’ll see the latter on the ice again. The club’s all-time scoring leader played just eight games in 2024/2025 and, judging from Red Star’s socials, he’s now scouting in North America.
