Season review: Lada. Altybarmakyan and Sawchuk shine amid revolving door
KHL.ru continues its club-by-club review of the 2025/2026 season in Togliatti, where Lada had more players (54) than points (47) in a difficult campaign.
Round-up of the Season
Lada began the 2025/2026 campaign under Boris Mironov, but he didn’t last more than a couple of weeks in the job. After opening with a 4-3 win over Avtomobilist, Lada slumped to four straight losses and Mironov was fired. There was no new coach bounce, though: under Pavel Desyatkov the losing streak reached nine straight games.
Things picked up a little in October with the team beginning to get a few points. But the damage was done early and it was always a big ask to claw back the deficit from the opening month of the season. Lada finished with 47 points, second from bottom in the Western Conference and the overall standings with only Sochi below.
Part of the problem might have been an astonishing turnover of players. The engine that powers Lada’s recruitment was in top gear throughout the season, with something of a revolving door in the locker room. In total, 54 players suited up for the Motormen over the course of the season – three goalies, 21 defensemen and 30 forwards.
Best players
Lada’s first-line center was the only player to feature in all 68 games last season. The Canadian led the team in scoring with 45 (23+22) points. He was also second for hits and blocked more shots than any other forward.
By any measure, the 27-year-old enjoyed his best KHL season to date. The forward was second in team goals (19) and had 34 points in total. Altybarmakyan looked strong on the power play (5 goals) and had four game-winning goals. He also had 72 hits in the season. Perhaps the biggest shortcoming this term was his quick temper, which landed him 74 penalty minutes, fourth highest in the league during the regular season.
Andrei Chivilyov was second in team scoring. He kept up his form even in the dark days of September (3+4 for the month), so it was no surprise that he improved his previous best for goals and assists in a KHL season (14+24).
Coaching
Boris Mironov started the season with Lada, winning one game in five, but ended up as an assistant to Igor Larionov on SKA’s coaching staff. Pavel Desyatkov took his place for the remaining 63 games, winning 19 of them. Desyatkov is something of a Togliatti legend: he played eight seasons with Lada in the 90s and after hanging up his skates he remained on the coaching staff, working at all levels from youth teams to the KHL. However, the story came to an end this season. Lada announced it was not extending his contract, and Desyatkov is heading to Khabarovsk to work as assistant to Alexander Andriyevsky at Amur.
Best game
Lada twice beat Ak Bars in quick succession on Feb. 25 (5-4 SO) and March 3 (5-3). The first of those games was a real stand-out. Lada trailed 0-3 midway through the first period but battled back to tie it up in the last moments of the second. The Motormen got ahead for the first time after the intermission only to allow a fourth goal. That forced overtime before Lada got over the line in a shoot-out to crown a memorable evening. A few days later the teams met again and Lada again pulled off a comeback – this time from 0-2 on the way to a 5-3 verdict in regulation.
Youngsters
There weren’t many U23s among the 50+ men who represented Lada last season. Pavel Desyatkov did not give many opportunities to his young forwards, who had just a handful of games. Artemy Kuznetsov (7 games, 0+1) probably made the biggest impact. On defense there was more game time. Alexander Lukin, 22, arrived from Sibir and played 16 games with 10:43 in ice time, one goal and a -2 rating. Maxim Belousov, 21, played throughout the season (54 games, 8:48, 2+4, -6).
Summer activity
In the early days of the trade window, Lada has not been a big player. Thus far, the management has extended a few contracts – defensemen Nikolai Makarov and Yegor Morozov, plus forwards Pavel Gogolev, Evgeny Groshev, Ivan Romanov and Vladislav Chervonenko. The Motormen are still awaiting their first arrivals of the summer.
