One still unbeaten

After one full week of action, only one team remains undefeated in KHL play this season – but three are seeking a first victory. We’ve seen the first hat-trick of the campaign, a club record victory and retribution for pre-season grievances. And this week, the latest new KHL arena is set to stage its first game.

Loko remains last unbeaten team

Lokomotiv’s 3-2 win at CSKA on Sunday evening preserved the last remaining winning start to the 2026/2027 season. The defending champion is up to four straight victories, having previously seen off Traktor, Shanghai Dragons and Severstal. Lokomotiv shares top spot with SKA, which has four wins from five games. At the other end of the standings, Sochi is still looking for its first win under new head coach Andrei Mironov. The Leopards have lost their opening three games, but can take confidence from a battling 0-1 loss to SKA in their first home game. Lada and Dinamo Minsk are also winless so far, but have picked up points: Lada has two overtime losses from three games, while Minsk has three points after taking all of its games beyond 60 minutes.

Spartak’s record win

An 8-0 thrashing of Severstal established a new club record for Spartak Moscow. Saturday’s emphatic display was the Red-and-Whites’ best ever result in the KHL. With three goals in the first two minutes, Spartak also set a league record for swift scoring. Alexander Belyayev led the way with 4 (2+2) points, and there were multi-point games for Yegor Filin (1+2), Christian Jaros (1+1), Ilya Kotlyarov and Andrei Mironov (both 0+2). It was Spartak’s third straight win after beating CSKA and SKA in its previous outings. 

Seroukh scores first hat-trick

The first player to score a hat-trick this season was Daniil Seroukh. He scored three for Torpedo in an impressive 7-2 win at Lada as the first line ran riot in Togliatti. Alongside Seroukh, Yegor Vinogradov made three assists and Vladimir Tkachyov finished with 1+2. Seroukh joined Torpedo from Sochi, where he was the first player to score five goals in a KHL game. On Feb. 19, 2025, he famously potted all the Leopards’ goals in a 5-3 win at Dynamo Moscow.

Barys goal rush

Astana is the place to go for goals, with Barys blasting a league-leading 16 in its first three games. Mikhail Kravets’ men started with an emphatic 7-1 win over Sibir and followed that with a remarkable 8-6 verdict against Salavat Yulaev. But that powerful run of 15 goals in two games slowed sharply on Saturday when Amur largely silenced the Kazakh offense. A 3-1 victory for the Tigers halted a winning start for Barys.

Dynamic derby starts with fight

The clash between Dynamo Moscow and Dinamo Minsk began with the teams settling scores from pre-season. In the summer, a clash between Moscow’s Andrei Nikonov and Minsk’s Nicolas Meloche left the latter injured and grievances festering. The opening seconds of the teams’ first league encounter – played in St. Petersburg due to a prior engagement at Dynamo’s arena in the capital – brought a flurry of fights as the players sought their own brand of justice. Once that challenge had been satisfied, the game also proved dramatic: the Muscovites got up 2-0, the Belarusians hit back to force overtime, but Jordan Weal gave the notional host victory in a shoot-out. 

New face leads scoring race

Much of the credit for the Barys goal rush lies with American forward Justin Bailey. The 31-year-old currently leads the KHL in scoring with 7 (3+4) points from three games. Bailey is enjoying a flying start to his KHL career, having arrived in the summer from San Jose. He is joined on seven points by Ak Bars’ Kirill Semyonov (1+6) and SKA’s Nikolai Goldobin (0+7). Brennan Menell leads the scoring among defensemen with six points for Shanghai Dragons so far, including an OT winner against his former club Dinamo Minsk. 

Ivanov is top goalie so far

The best goaltending this season has come from SKA’s Sergei Ivanov. The 22-year-old has allowed just one goal in his two games to date, stopping 57 shots for an impressive 98.3% ratio. Ivanov secured a 2-1 OT win over Lada, then a 1-0 victory at Sochi. In SKA’s three other games, Igor Larionov’s team has allowed three goals each time. Salavat Yulaev’s Semyon Vyazovoi is next on the list, allowing two goals in two games with a ratio of 97%. Like Ivanov, he has one shut-out – a 4-0 success at Avangard – and two wins. 

 

Torpedo to open new arena

Tonight’s game between Torpedo and Ak Bars will be the first KHL action at Nizhny Novgorod’s new Volga Arena. Four years in construction, the 12,000-seater hall staged its test event last week when Torpedo’s juniors, Chayka, faced their Kazan counterpart Irbis. Now the official opening sees the clubs’ senior teams go head-to-head in the KHL. The old Nagorny Arena will be used by Torpedo’s farm club in the VHL.