Best Players of the 2025-2026 fifth week

The Kontinental Hockey League’s commission has determined the best players of the 2025-2026 Regular Season’s fifth week in four categories.

The League’s teams played 25 games last week, with 489 players (37 goalies, 161 defensemen, and 291 forwards) taking part in the action. The scoring was at 4.76 goals per game.

- Best goalie for the third time in his career was Vladimir Galkin (Avtomobilist), who won two game from two last week. The Yekaterinburg goalie faced 75 shots, or 37.5 per game, with a save percentage of 98.97% and a goals-against average of 0.50. Galkin celebrated his first shutout of the season in Friday’s win over Avangard (3:0).

- Best defenseman for the second time in his career was Yegor Yakovlev (Metallurg), who scored 4 (2+2) points in three games last week. Yakovlev also delivered two hits, blocked four shots, and had one takeaway. In the Friday’s game against Torpedo, the Magnitogorsk blueliner netted the game-winning goal. Yakovlev was first awarded Best defenseman honors in the fifth week of the 2016-2017 season, playing for SKA.

- Best forward for the first time in his career was Roman Gorbunov (Avtomobilist), who scored 3 (2+1) points in three games last week, with a plus-3 rating. Gorbunov netted the game-winning goals in Mondays’s 4:1 win over Avangard and Wednesday’s 2:1 OT victory over SKA. He also made five hits, blocked four shots, and had three takeaways.

- Best rookie for the first time in his career was defenseman Kirill Zhukov (Lada), who played two matches with an average time on ice of 17 minutes and 49 seconds. He delivered six hits, blocked six shots, and made two pass interceptions.