Season preview. SKA: shifts rather than changes

KHL.ru continues its club-by-club preview of the 2025-2026 season with SKA. At first glance, it may seem that SKA is in for big changes, but that’s not quite the case.

Last Season

The St. Petersburg team traditionally entered last year’s championship as one of the favorites. All the more so since the season before that, for the first time in ten years (excluding the COVID-19 2019-2020 season), they failed to get past the second round of the playoffs — something that did not match their high ambitions. Rehabilitation was not just expected, but practically considered mandatory. For this purpose, none other than Evgeny Kuznetsov was brought in, along with Nikita Zaitsev, Sergei Andronov, Mikhail Grigorenko, and Sergei Plotnikov, and during the season also Anthony DeAngelo.

The result was discouraging. In the regular season, SKA finished seventh in the conference (13th overall), and was eliminated in the very first round of the Gagarin Cup playoffs — something that hadn’t happened since 2010.

To add another detail: SKA lost by a large margin three times — the same number as in all previous KHL regular seasons combined. Moreover, while previously the Army team had suffered blowout losses exclusively on the road, this time all three came in front of their own fans — and all within a relatively short one-and-a-half-month span.

Recruitment

The results of last season — or rather, the lack of them — quickly led to organizational consequences. SKA completely changed its management; some players were traded to other teams for fairly cheap returns, with others simply having their contracts terminated; and even before those organizational changes, four had already left for the NHL. Initially, reinforcements were very modest, but closer to August and in August itself, newcomers with big names started arriving.

Departures:
Defensemen: Grigory Gryaznov (SKA-VMF, VHL), Artyom Zemchyonok (Lada, trade), Nikita Lisov, Alexander Nikishin (Carolina, NHL), Dmitry Yudin. Forwards: Pavel Akolzin (Shanghai Dragons), Sergei Andronov, Vladimir Barabanov, Zakhar Bardakov (Colorado, NHL), Pavel Dedunov (Sochi, trade), Ivan Demidov (Montreal, NHL), Mikhail Grigorenko (Traktor), Arseniy Gritsyuk (New Jersey, NHL), Albert Konozov, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Grigory Kuzmin (Spartak, trade), Nikolai Polyakov (Lada, trade), Sergei Tolchinsky (Metallurg), Andrei Chivilyov (Lada).

Arrivals:
Goalie: Sergei Ivanov (Sochi, returned from loan). Defensemen: Brennan Menell (Dynamo Moscow, trade), Trevor Murphy (Sibir), Marcus Phillips (Torpedo). Forwards: Joseph Blandisi (Toronto, AHL), Nikolai Goldobin (Spartak), Rocco Grimaldi (Cleveland, AHL), Igor Larionov (Torpedo), Andrei Loktionov (Spartak).

Top 3 Signings

Rocco Grimaldi’s short stature (168 cm) has been the main obstacle to a successful NHL career, and over the past three seasons he hasn’t played a single game there. But in all other respects he is a very strong forward, something he has repeatedly proven both in the AHL — where he averaged just under a point per game — and internationally, where he was the top scorer of the 2023 World Championship (7+7 in ten games).

Alexander Nikishin had been the league’s highest-scoring defenseman for two years in a row, and last season he only lost that title to Trevor Murphy, after which he left for the NHL. It is rather symbolic that it is Murphy who will now replace him at SKA.

St. Petersburg’s club was extremely fortunate that in mid-August — when most rosters were already nearly finalized — Nikolai Goldobin suddenly became available. An elite forward, over the last two seasons he scored 64 goals and recorded 90 assists. In “Larionov-style hockey,” he should feel right at home.

Coaching

Roman Rotenberg, who had coached SKA in 261 games since 2020, also didn’t escape organizational consequences and was dismissed. He was replaced by Igor Larionov, who previously headed Torpedo. Larionov’s debut season was spectacular — not so much in terms of results, but in the overall impression made by Nizhny Novgorod’s style of play. It seemed the team couldn’t quite handle the enormous wave of (fully deserved) praise and developed something like a case of “star fever.”

The following two years showed no visible progress in terms of play, and in terms of results there was even a small but steady regression: 46 wins in 2022-2023, 35 in 2023-2024, and only 31 in 2024-2025. This regression, just like at SKA, prompted organizational changes, and Larionov, despite having a valid contract, was dismissed.

Interestingly, Larionov is still somewhat automatically regarded as a “young coach.” In terms of his coaching career, that is true (although three full seasons, all with the same team, already make for solid experience). But in terms of age, last season there wasn’t a single head coach in the entire KHL older than him. And in the current one, if not for Vladimir Krikunov’s return, Larionov would still hold that distinction.

Goalies

SKA has been left with a goaltending corps made up entirely of young netminders. However, they have gained experience and grown a year older: Yegor Zavragin just turned 20, Pavel Moysevich will be 21 in a month, Sergei Ivanov turned 21 in April, and Artemy Pleshkov will be 23 in October. Each of them has roughly equal chances of becoming the starting goalie.

Defense

Behind Nikishin (and Anthony DeAngelo, who left during the season), the next most productive defenseman was Andrei Pedan, who didn’t score much — one goal and 15 assists. To strengthen the second pairing, alongside Murphy, Brennan Menell was brought in from Dynamo Moscow. His performance dropped somewhat due to injury, but if he returns to his previous level, he could provide Murphy with decent competition. However, replacements for Artyom Zemchyonok and Dmitry Yudin will have to be found from the youth reserves, since Marcus Phillips is a defenseman of a somewhat different profile.

Offense

The roster shake-up most heavily affected the attack — both in quantity and quality. But one of the distinctive features of the “old” SKA was that any forward could unexpectedly be dropped to the fourth line, benched, or even sent to the reserve list. And yet, SKA still became the highest-scoring team of the regular season. From that lineup, five forwards who averaged at least 13 minutes of ice time remain; four of them collected at least 20 points (plus Vladimir Alistrov with 19). With the additions of Goldobin and Grimaldi, as well as Joseph Blandisi, Andrei Loktionov, and Igor Larionov Jr., there are already three solid lines with depth. In the end, although the losses are very significant, it’s definitely not a catastrophe. It’s quite possible that the squad may not even notice the missing players — especially if Goldobin and Grimaldi integrate quickly and smoothly.

Prospects

The goaltending group was already mentioned above. Among the skaters, Larionov will also have no shortage of options — thanks to SKA’s well-developed infrastructure. The most interesting prospect is Matvei Korotky, who established himself as a regular in last year’s star-studded lineup. Of course, this was partly due to SKA’s specific approach to its offense, as noted earlier, but Korotky’s talent itself also played an important role.

What to expect

At first glance, it may seem as if some sort of revolution has taken place at SKA, and therefore big changes are ahead. But that’s not quite the case — or not at all. Simply because big changes have literally happened there every summer in recent years, and this time’s adjustments, while not minor, fit logically into the already familiar “sharp course change in summer” routine.

SKA’s style of play is also unlikely to change much. Perhaps someone else will become the league’s highest-scoring team, but the Army club will in any case remain offense-oriented. And, probably, not the most reliable defensively.

So, expectations for very high results should probably be kept modest for now. Still, SKA should at least get past one round of the playoffs — and perhaps even two.