Morozov: “New playoff format encourages teams to get as many points as possible in regular season”

Ahead of Thursday’s KHL Closing Ceremony, the league’s management met with directors of the 22 clubs in Moscow to review the 2025/2026 season.

League president Alexei Morozov commented on several of the key issues in conversation with journalists after the meeting.

“We discussed how the season went, summed up the championship,” Morozov told journalists. “It was a success. We had record attendances and great achievements for players and coaches. We all remember Vadim Shipachyov’s 1,000th point and Dmitry Kvartalnov’s 1,000th game as head coach. In total, 16 team and individual records were broken during the season.

We also had records for total and average attendance. The average was 7,902 per game, which is a really good figure. We’re grateful to our clubs and partners for their work in attracting people to games.

Among the changes, 16 of 22 clubs supported our idea about the playoffs. Starting from the second round the teams will be joined in a single table based on their points from the regular season. The first seed will play the eighth, the second will play the seventh, and so on. This year we had a situation where in the semifinals Lokomotiv faced Avangard: Lokomotiv won its conference, Avangard was second in the East, so Loko had home ice advantage. But Avangard won more points in regular season. The rule has changed, we modelled the situation based on the current playoffs. Now we will see different pairings, including teams in the same conference, it will be interesting. This innovation should encourage teams to get as many points as possible in the regular season to finish higher up the table.

– Why have you cancelled the Opening Cup?
– The players are preparing to try to win the Gagarin Cup, they’re starting on a long journey. Sometimes they are not in peak condition at the start of the season, some were overloaded in preseason, everyone has his own preparations. This season starts on a Saturday and we decided to play more than one game. People miss their hockey and want more games in different cities. We made this choice for the fans.

– Will the KHL World Stars return to the Channel 1 Cup?
– We took part in the tournament when it was in St. Petersburg. Last season it was in Novosibirsk and, along with the clubs, we felt the extra travel and time difference made it too difficult for players to participate. At the moment there is no proposal from the Russian Hockey Federation and we don’t yet know where the tournament will be held.

Record attendances

The 2025/2026 regular championship was the most watched in history – 5,874,018 spectators attended 748 games, for an average of 7,853 per game. Both figures represent KHL records. Including the playoffs, a total of 6,569,164 fans generated an average attendance of 7,972, also record figures.

New season schedule

The 2026/2027 KHL regular season will start on Sep. 5. Unlike previous seasons, there will be no Opening Cup and several games will be scheduled for the opening day. The regular season runs through March 20, 2027, with teams again playing 68 games each. The playoffs will start on March 23 and continue until May 23, the scheduled date for game seven of the Gagarin Cup Final.

A majority of directors (16 out of 22) voted in favor of a change to the playoff system. Now, after playing round one in conferences, the pairings for round two and beyond will be based on the final points tallies of the competing teams in the regular season, with no reference to Eastern and Western Conferences.

There will be three breaks in the regular season: one for the Channel 1 Cup, one for New Year and a third for the All-Star Weekend.

Finances

Over the past five seasons, the KHL has seen self-generated revenue increase from 7.6% to 18.2% of the total, with the figure expected to clear 20% once the current season’s figures are known. Several KHL clubs are already generating more than 25% of their own incomes.

Arena updates

Torpedo is expected to move into its new home for the upcoming season. SKA and Shanghai Dragons will share SKA Arena in St. Petersburg. CSKA and Spartak have plans to build new homes in Moscow but neither arena is expected to be ready before 2028/2029.