Fantastic first weekend

The 2025/2026 Fonbet KHL Championship is underway – and we’ve already seen plenty of drama. From a shoot-out to settle the Opening Cup to a clutch of teams starting with statement wins, it’s been a big few days of hockey. Read on for the key takeaways.

Loko lifts Opening Cup

Defending champion Lokomotiv Yaroslavl won the Opening Cup after a hard-fought battle with Traktor. The game went to a shoot-out – only the second time the Opening Cup has gone the full distance – before the Railwaymen took the verdict. Young forward Yegor Surin claimed the first goal of the season, and Maxim Beryozkin potted the shoot-out winner. It adds up to back-to-back Opening Cups for Loko, and a sixth time winning the trophy for Alexander Radulov.

Leivo opens account

Josh Leivo, who broke Sergei Mozyakin’s record for goals in a regular season with 49 last term, potted his first of the season following his move to Traktor. The Canadian found the net in Astana to open the scoring against Barys, but could not stop his team falling to another loss in overtime. The former Salavat Yulaev man needs another 49 tallies this season to break his own record. 

New-look CSKA impresses in derby

Igor Nikitin is back with a bang at CSKA. After leading Loko to last year’s cup, the coach returned to the capital and began the season with a 6-2 win over Dynamo. It’s a new-look roster for the Muscovites, and there were good performances from goalie Spencer Martin and forwards Daniel Sprong – who becomes the first Dutchman to score in the KHL – and Rhett Gardner who had two assists.

Dragons breathe fire

Opening night for the new-look Shanghai Dragons was a success on and off the ice. The franchise, previously known as Kunlun Red Star, attracted a record 15,000 attendance to its new temporary home at SKA Arena for a city derby against SKA. And, even if many in attendance were more interested in Petersburg’s more established club, they could hardly have gone away unimpressed as Gerard Gallant and his team powered to a 7-4 victory. At a time of great change for the Dragons, it was perhaps fitting that long-serving Parker Foo potted his team’s first goal; a four-point game from new signing Gage Quinney pointed to a bright future for the team.

Coaches’ debut wins

Gerard Gallant wasn’t the only head coach to celebrate his first victory in a KHL game. At Torpedo, Alexei Isakov shrugged off a tough pre-season to claim success when it counts – a 4-3 win over Salavat Yulaev in the home opener in Nizhny Novgorod. Isakov’s career to date has brought trophies in the lower leagues as part of the Torpedo system, but losing all but one warm-up game put pressure on the new man before the season even started. Then, on Sunday, Alexander Galchenyuk Sr took charge of Amur and earned a 2-0 win on the road at Sibir. This year represents a return to coaching for Galchenyuk, who previously worked as an assistant at Sarnia Sting in Canada’s Ontario Hockey League back in 2010-2013. Last year he was a development coach with the Tigers. 

Denisenko joins Ak Bars at last

One of the most drawn-out sagas of the summer reached a successful conclusion when Ak Bars completed the acquisition of Grigory Denisenko. The 25-year-old winger emerged through the Lokomotiv system and established himself in the KHL in the latter half of 2018/2019. He also captained Russia’s juniors at the 2020 World Championship, then moved to Florida to try and crack the NHL. Over five seasons in North America he was involved at the Panthers, then the Golden Knights, but spent most of his time in the AHL (231 games against 33 in the NHL). Lokomotiv retained his rights, and took some persuading to release the forward to a KHL rival, but last week the clubs reached a deal that saw 16-year-old prospect Andrei Pustovoi move to Yaroslavl. Denisenko made his debut on Saturday in Ak Bars’ shoot-out loss to Metallurg. 

Remembering Lokomotiv

Sunday was the 14th anniversary of the Lokomotiv air disaster, in which the team was killed when the plane taking it to the opening game of the season crashed on take-off. As always, Lokomotiv was not scheduled to play today and Bob Hartley and his team went to pay tribute at the memorial erected after the tragedy. The four scheduled games went ahead with a minute’s silence in memory of the players, coaches and staff who perished. Each team had black ribbons on its uniforms, and each arena had a sector left aside for 44 scarves to be draped over the seats in memory of the 44 victories of the crash.