Green derby boost for Kazan, Traktor wins home opener

Ak Bars claimed a 3-1 victory over old foe Salavat Yulaev, and condemned its opponent to the Eastern Conference basement. With neither of the traditional powerhouses in good form, this may prove a pivotal moment for the home team this season. Traktor made it back to Chelyabinsk after a six-game road trip and celebrated with a 3-2 win over Neftekhimik. In St. Petersburg, Dinamo Minsk jumped to a 2-0 lead over SKA but fell to Trevor Murphy’s OT winner. Elsewhere, Sibir edged a 1-0 verdict over Amur and Avtomobilist beat Spartak 5-4 after a shoot-out. 

Krasotkin blanks Tigers

Amur Khabarovsk 0 Sibir Novosibirsk 1 (0-0, 0-0, 0-1)

Anton Krasotkin’s shut-out and Nikita Soshnikov’s first goal of the season secured Sibir its second victory over Amur in three days.



After Wednesday’s shoot-out loss, Amur recalled alternate captain Evgeny Grachyov, who shook off an injury to resume his place on the first line. Sibir largely kept with a winning team, making cosmetic changes to some lines. Vladislav Kara made his 300th KHL appearance.

The first period was a little lifeless. Both teams skated well, but the puck spent most of its time on the boards or in center ice. The teams managed 18 shots between them, but few of them packed much of a punch.

After the intermission the game opened up a little. Amur looked the better team and constantly had the puck moving around in front of Krasotkin’s net. However, scoring chances still proved hard to find and once again the two goalies were the best players on the ice.

The opening goal finally arrived seconds into the final frame. Soshnikov beat Maxim Dorozhko to claim his first goal since joining Sibir with a powerful shot over the goalie’s shoulder. The goal shook up both teams: Amur, in particular, stepped up both the frequency and threat of its attacks in a bid to retrieve the situation. The home team hit the crossbar, and repeatedly came close to scoring but Krasotkin stopped most of what he faced and was well supported by his team mates as they jumped in front of shots. That enabled Sibir to hold its slender lead until the end and leave Khabarovsk with four points.

Late rally leads Motormen to win

Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg 5 Spartak Moscow 4 SO (1-2, 1-0, 2-2, 0-0, 1-0)

A high-scoring game in Yekaterinburg saw Avtomobilist rally from 2-4 before claiming a shoot-out verdict over Spartak. Semyon Kizimov scored twice and Stephane da Costa had three assists for the home team, while Luke Lockhart potted his first goal for the visitor.



Before that, Avtomobilist’s 19-year-old prospect Maxim Tarasov opened the scoring in the third minute from an odd-man rush. That  was the young forward’s first KHL point. Roman Gorbunov threatened to double the lead, but Artyom Zagidulin denied the Belarusian forward.

Spartak soon got back into the game, and led in the 13th minute. The Red-and-Whites scored from their first power play when Alexander Pashin had a simple task to put away the rebound from Adam Ruzicka’s shot. Then Lockhart opened his account to give the visitor a lead it would hold until the intermission.

In the second period, Avtomobilist stepped up the tempo and steadily wore Spartak down. The visitor took its first penalty of the game and grabbed the tying goal when Kizimov redirected a da Costa shot midway through the session.

The third period began with two quick goals for Spartak. Both came on the power play, with Pashin setting up German Rubtsov for 3-2 then Pavel Poryadin producing a more-or-less solo effort when he found space to release a devastating wrister past Vladimir Galkin.

But there was time enough for Avto to fight back. Midway through the third, a classy cross-ice feed from da Costa found Reid Boucher in the right-hand circle; 3-4. After that, only Zagidulin kept a rampant home offense at bay until Alexei Zhamnov’s time-out calmed the visitor’s nerves. At the other end, Mikhail Maltsev was the width of the piping away from restoring the Muscovites’ two-goal lead.

In the end, Avtomobilist went with six skaters and forced an unbelievable save from Zagidulin to deny Danil Romantsev. But he was beaten at last on 59:12 when Kizimov redirected a Jesse Blacker shot to make it 4-4.

In overtime, Boucher hit the crossbar at one end, and Galkin denied Rubtsov at the other before the game went to a shoot-out. Boucher was the only player to convert his attempt, handing the Motormen a fourth win in five games. 

Victory in home opener for Traktor

Traktor Chelyabinsk 3 Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk 2 (1-1, 1-1, 1-0)

After a long and sometimes testing road trip, Traktor returned to Chelyabinsk for its home opener. The visitor was Neftekhimik, a team on something of a roll with three victories after it lost 3-4 at home to last season’s runner-up on Sep. 9.



The Wolves enjoyed a bright start, getting a power play in the first minute and parlaying that into an opening goal for Evgeny Mityakin off Danil Yurtaikin’s feed. However, Traktor responded fast when a big hit from Yegor Korshkov knocked one opposing player out of the action and Alexander Kadeikin picked up the puck and beat Fillip Dolganov to make it 1-1.

The second period was something of a mirror image. Traktor got the early goal when Andrei Svetlakov stripped Yurtaikin of the puck and set up Josh Leivo for his second goal since joining Traktor. Svetlakov got his first helper of the season.

Now it was Neftekhimik’s turn to fight back, and Matvei Nadvorny did just that midway through the game after goalie Chris Driedger’s clearance round the boards went straight to him. Driedger recovered to deny Alexander Dergachyov a go-ahead goal when he got clean through on the Traktor net late in the frame.

Leivo and Svetlakov combined as Traktor regained the lead in the third period. Their attack was finished off by defenseman Grigory Dronov’s first goal of the season. At the other end, German Tochilkin was close to a memorable coast-to-coast effort but was halted by Logan Day at the cost of a foul. Traktor killed penalty and went on to close out a third successive victory. The win means the team keeps pace with Metallurg at the top of the Eastern Conference.

Green Derby goes to Ak Bars

Ak Bars Kazan 3 Salavat Yulaev Ufa 1 (0-0, 2-0, 1-1)

The Green Derby is traditionally a battle at the top of the Eastern Conference. Today, the loser would lie at the foot of the early-season standings.



But it was the home team that grabbed the feel-good factor, beating Salavat Yulaev to record a first win at the Tatneft Arena this season. A couple of goals midway through the second period turned the game in Ak Bars’ favor, and Dmitry Katelevsky added a third midway through the final frame.

For Salavat Yulaev, this was a fourth successive loss. The Bashkir team has been forced to part with many of its stars from last season and the class of 2025/2026 is struggling to gel early in the campaign.

With neither team in good form, it was perhaps not surprising that the opening frame was goalless. Ak Bars had slightly the better of the play, outshooting Salavat 11-8, but there was no breakthrough before the intermission.

The turning point came in the second period. Salavat Yulaev ran into penalty trouble. In the 27th minute, Ildan Gazimov was assessed a double minor for high sticks. While he was in the box, Vladislav Yefremov went to join him. Ufa survived with three men, but Ak Bars scored when it went back to five-on-four. Ilya Karpukhin’s much-deflected attempt dropped kindly for Ilya Safonov and he banged it in from the slot.

Safonov’s next contribution was a fight with Alexander Komarov, which led to another home power play. This time, though, Ak Bars was toothless with an extra man. However, with the teams back at full strength, Kirill Semyonov potted another from the slot to open a 2-0 lead.

With the visitor struggling to get shots at Mikhail Berdin, that advantage felt decisive. And Salavat Yulaev’s offense continued to splutter in the third. The visitor managed just four shots on target, and fell further behind on that Katelevsky goal. In the closing moments, Mitch Miller took a holding penalty and Ufa finally gained some traction around Berdin’s net. Yefremov pulled a goal back on 59:16, but it was too little too late for the visitor.

Bison blow early lead

SKA St. Petersburg 3 Dinamo Minsk 2 OT (1-2, 0-0, 1-0, 1-0)

Down by two in the second minute, SKA had to dig deep to turn this game around. But the home team tied the scores in the third period and went on to win it on Trevor Murphy’s overtime goal.



Dinamo could not have asked for a better start to this game. Dmitry Kvartalnov’s men scored twice in the second minute to stun most of the 11,000 fans in the arena. Alex Limoges got his sixth goal in five KHL games since his summer arrival, breaking the deadlock in the 65th second. The 28-year-old

American was first to react after Sergey Kuznetsov’s shot was blocked by home goalie Yegor Zavragin.

Thirty seconds later, Kuznetsov scored himself. Vadim Moroz fired the puck out from behind the net and his team-mate finished off from close range.
Dinamo continued to press, and might have had a third in the fifth minute. This time, Zavragin got it right, halting Vitaly Pinchuk’s solo rush to keep his team in the game.

Finally, SKA managed to gain some momentum. Mikhail Vorobyov had a great chance to pull one back but could not convert even after the rebound from Zach Fucale presented him with an open net. Then came a couple of power plays in quick succession, and the second of them saw Valentin Zykov score at the second attempt after Sergei Sapego tested Fucale from distance. That halved the deficit midway through the opening frame.

After that blistering start, things slowed. There was no further scoring in the first, and the second proved far less enterprising. SKA was held to just four shots at Fucale, while Dinamo also struggled to create clear-cut chances.

In the third, SKA had to raise the tempo. Zavragin was a virtual spectator at times as the home team pushed forward in search of a tying goal. And the pressure told in the 53rd minute when Brennan Menell made it 2-2. The defenseman, who began his KHL career in Minsk in 2020/2021, skated down the right wing in support of Nikolai Goldobin’s rush. The forward dished the pass off to the right and Menell surprised everyone with a shot from the boards that got past Fucale.

Immediately after that, Dinamo got a power play and spent some shifts in SKA’s zone for the first time in a while. That brought chances for Andrei Stas, Moroz and Darren Dietz, but no goals as the game moved towards overtime.

SKA began the extras on the power play after Kristian Khenkel was penalized for shoving Zykov into the net after the hooter. That proved costly for Dinamo, which was under pressure throughout the additional frame. Marat Khairullin hit the post, but then turned provider to Trevor Murphy to fire home the winner as Vorobyov screened Fucale’s view.