All Stars and World Games

There’s a lot to look forward after another busy week in the KHL. Next month sees the return of the KHL World Games and another step towards returning the league to China. And next weekend brings the All-Star Game in Yekaterinburg, one of the highlights of the season.

KHL World Games Shanghai

The KHL World Games are back – and the 2026 edition is a step towards bringing our Chinese franchise back home. Shanghai Dragons will play two games at Shanghai’s Oriental Sports Center, an 18,000 seater arena that has previously hosted World Championships in Figure Skating and Short Track. The games against Sibir (March 5) and Barys (March 7) were hailed as “a significant step towards the league’s return to China” by KHL President Alexei Morozov.

Changes to All-Star rosters

With less than a week until the 2026 Fonbet KHL All-Star Game, we have some roster updates. First, millennium man Vadim Shipachyov has been added to the KHL RUS Stars team. Dinamo Minsk’s Shipachyov, 37, recently became the first player to total 1,000 points in the KHL. Saturday’s event will be his seventh All-Star appearance.

KHL World Stars also faces changes. Spartak’s Slovak forward Adam Ruzicka is unavailable, meaning two-way Czech defenseman Libor Sulak comes into the team. And, after Gerard Gallant had to step down as head coach of Shanghai Dragons, Mitch Love will take his place behind the bench here, as well as at his club. Last week, Love got his first victory in the KHL when his Dragons team won 6-2 at Sochi.

The All-Star Weekend starts Friday with the Junior Hockey League Challenge Cup, followed by the main event over two days on Saturday and Sunday.

Metallurg books playoff spot

Runaway regular season leader Metallurg secured its place in the playoffs before the end of January. When Amur lost 2-4 at Avtomobilist on Monday, it ended the ninth-placed Tigers’ mathematical chances of overhauling the Eastern Conference top dog. The following day, the Steelmen celebrated with a 3-2 derby win over Traktor and cleared 200 goals for the second season running. The KHL’s most productive offense now has 207 goals from 50 games and is set to improve on the 212 Magnitka scored last season.

One second, one save

Amur goalie Viktor Kobezov hasn’t seen much ice time this season – but he makes an impact whenever he gets involved. The 21-year-old back-up to Maxim Dorozhko is a penalty shot specialist. So far, he’s played just one second of regulation time this season, stepping into Thursday’s win over Avtomobilist to deny Reid Boucher. Then, on Saturday, he replaced Dorozhko for the shoot-out against Barys and once again remained unbeaten as the Tigers took the verdict. Earlier, Kobezov had a similar impact in a shoot-out success at SKA.

Radulov record

Alexander Radulov keeps rolling back the years. The 39-year-old is Lokomotiv’s leading scorer this season as Bob Hartley’s team leads the Western Conference. And last week saw him set a KHL record as the most productive player in his age bracket. On Tuesday he had 3 (1+2) points as Loko defeated SKA. That took him to 42 for the season, tied with Pavel Datsyuk and Sergei Zubov as the most productive campaign by a player aged 39+. On Friday, Radulov assisted on one of Yegor Suchkov’s goals in a 3-1 win over Lada to beat the tally that Zubov achieved back in 2010. 

Bratash wins with Admiral at last

Admiral snapped a nine-game skid with a 5-2 win over fellow struggler Barys. That was good news for head coach Oleg Bratash, who claimed his first victory after he was unveiled as Leonids Tambijevs replacement behind the bench. Tambijevs, meanwhile, joined Igor Larionov’s coaching staff at SKA last week.

Big Bird back in flight

Salavat Yulaev captain Grigory Panin borrowed Evgeny Kuznetsov’s big bird celebration after scoring an empty-net goal in his team’s 3-1 win over Torpedo. And with good reason. Kuznetsov not only returned from injury to play in Saturday’s game, he laid on an assist to help Panin seal the victory.

Valk leaves Avto

Forward Curtis Valk’s contract at Avtomobilist was terminated last week. The Canadian-born naturalized Kazakh citizen came to the KHL in 2018 and played four seasons at Barys before moving to Yekaterinburg. This season, the 32-year-old had 30 games for 11 (6+5) points; his career total is 77+155 in 418 games.