Amur season review: playoff battle with Sibir, reliable Dorozhko, productive Li and Likhachyov
KHL.ru continues its club-by-club review of the 2025/2026 season. Amur remained in playoff contention until mid-March but eventually lost out to Sibir.
Round-up
Amur began 2025/2026 under head coach Alexander Galchenyuk Sr. He got off to a good start with a 2-0 win over Sibir thanks to goals from Sergei Dubakin and Oleg Li, backed up by Maxim Dorozhko’s shut-out.
That immediately kickstarted the season’s main theme – an on-going rivalry with Sibir. At the start of October the teams were level on points, by early November the Tigers had edged one point clear and in December the gap grew to seven points in the standings.
In November, Alexander Andriyevsky took over as head coach. Initially an interim measure, he was given the job full time in December.
At the end of the calendar year, Amur remained in the playoff spaces. On Dec. 31 the Tigers were seventh in the East, three points clear of Sibir despite losing its last game of the year in a shoot-out against the Siberians.
But January turned into a nightmare. That loss to Sibir triggered a nine-game skid. The team did not get its first points of 2026 on Jan. 29 and a win over Avtomobilist. By the end of the month, Amur was down to ninth place, six points adrift of Sibir.
The race wasn’t over. Amur tried to catch up and produced a real battle for the last playoff spot. On March 7, Sibir lost to Ak Bars and Amur won at home to Salavat Yulaev, reducing the gap to just three points. But two painful shut-out losses against Barys and Spartak saw Amur fall away again. Not even a come-from-behind win over Sochi could save the Tigers: the next day Sibir beat CSKA to clinch its playoff spot.
Despite missing out on the 2026 playoffs, Amur improved on the previous campaign: ninth place versus 11th, 60 points against 44 and 26 wins over 18. With 157 goals, this was the club’s third most productive season in the KHL.
Best players
Yaroslav Likhachyov began the season at Lokomotiv but was then loaned out to Amur. He made the most of the opportunity in Khabarovsk – the 24-year-old had 39 points 59 games, matching Jakub Petruzalek’s club record of 22 goals in a single regular season. Likhachyov is due to return to Yaroslavl after the end of his loan, but it’s likely that the Amur management will look to keep him with the Tigers.
The 35-year-old forward was the only man to features in all 68 games for Amur this season. He set a new personal best of 34 (15+19) points, improving on the 31 he had with Sibir in 2020/2021. In a recent interview, Li said that Amur meant a lot to him and he wanted to do something with the team “that would be remembered in the city, would write us into its history.” Oleg’s new contract will run to the end of 2027/2028.
The busiest goalie in last season’s championship, Dorozhko played 59 games, spent 3,521 minutes on the ice and stopped 1,722 shots – more than any other goalie in regular season. There were times when his lack of rest affected his form, but he still finished with impressive numbers despite the heavy workload: 92.2% saves, 2.47 GAA and five shut-outs.
Coaching
Alexander Galchenyuk started the season as head coach and took charge of 20 games, winning seven and collecting 17 points (42.5%). Alexander Andriyevsky had 48 games behind the bench, collecting 43 (44.8%) points. During the season he also reached 400 games as a KHL head coach, the 18th man to achieve that landmark.
Best game
The home win over Salavat Yulaev on March 7 was one of the most memorable games of the season. Two days after losing 1-4 to the same opposition, a revenge win was vital to keep playoff hopes alive. But the early stages suggested this might be a forlorn hope.
Salavat Yulaev got in front in the sixth minute, and Jack Rodewald doubled the lead early in the second period. With their backs against the wall, the Tigers roared back. Just two minutes after Rodewald’s goal, the game was tied. Oleg Li’s power play snipe and Grigory Kuzmin’s equalizer turned the game around. A few minutes later, Artyom Shvaryov and Yaroslav Likhachyov potted another quickfire double and the game went from 0-2 to 4-2 in half a period.
Alexei Vasilevsky pulled a late goal back for Salavat, but Alex Galchenyuk added a fifth at the other end. Both he and Likhachyov scored off assists from Li, who enjoyed his most productive game of the season (1+2). And there was still time for Kirill Petkov to shoot a sixth goal into the empty net, making it 6-3 at the hooter.
Young players
Although Maxim Dorozhko did the lion’s share of the goaltending, he got some rest. One of his understudies was 22-year-old Viktor Kobozev, who emerged as a shoot-out star. He first featured on Dec. 7, coming into the game to win a shoot-out against SKA. In late January he played a big role in two other victories – coming off the bench during regulation to stop a penalty shot from Avtomobilist’s Reid Boucher, then two days later stoning Barys in another shoot-out. After that, Kobozev got his first game time, playing a total of 60 minutes across two games.
On defense, Nikita Yevseyev stood out during his loan from Ak Bars. He turned 22 in May, and played an average of 19 minutes each game. He was the third most productive defenseman at the club with 4+12, and led the way with 84 blocked shots. His +8 was also the best rating on the team.
Although they didn’t register their first points, two 19-year-olds from the juniors made a step up – Ivan Sherstnyov and Amurskiye Tigry captain Mikhail Doroshenko. Sherstnyov played 12 games (4:19 average time on ice), Doroshenko four (5:13).
The most productive U23 was 22-year-old Alexander Filatev (4+8). Grigory Kuzmin, signed from Spartak before his 23rd birthday in April had 4+2 in 18 games, while Andrei Krutov, 20, had 2+2 in 21 games on loan from Torpedo.
Offseason work
Amur appointed a new GM this summer, with former KHL player Nikita Tochitsky taking the helm. His deputy is ex-Tiger Dmitry Lugin.
And they have already been busy. Amur has extended contracts with several players, most notably Oleg Li. There were also departures: Alex Galchenyuk joined Spartak, while Kirill Slepets and Damir Shaymardanov were traded to Sochi for defenseman Vasily Machulin. Three players reached the end of their loan spells: Nikita Yevseyev, Andrei Krutov and Yaroslav Likhachyov.
Meanwhile, the new recruits look useful. Alexander Trushkov joins Maxim Dorozhko in the goaltending stable, Alexander Dergachyov and Alexei Vasilevsky will add valuable experience, and the capture of Kirill Pilipenko has attracted plenty of attention. The former Severstal man had a tough time last season but at Amur he will surely be handed a leading role – which should help him recover his form.
