Big-name trades and winning streaks

October began with one star player getting a new club, and another leaving after just eight games. An eight-game winning run evolved in uncharacteristic fashion, and we saw a goalie goal that he’d rather forget.

Gusev’s new challenge

One of the biggest name players without a contract at the start of the season is all signed up – but Nikita Gusev isn’t back at a big club. Instead, the hero of Russia’s 2018 Olympic gold has a one-year deal with Sochi. The Leopards, rooted to the foot of the Western Conference, reportedly made Gusev their highest-paid player ever. The hope is that a man with 270 and 478 assists in 787 games can inspire the team to return to the playoffs. But it might be a big ask: Gusev’s Sochi debut on Saturday ended in a 0-6 loss to Torpedo.

Kuznetsov parts company with Sibir

Another big-name player is back on the market after Evgeny Kuznetsov and Sibir parted company. He played eight games in Novosibirsk this season, picking up 4 (2+2) points. He has 240 (139+101) points from 345 KHL games. It will be interesting to see the Stanley Cup winner’s next move: earlier this summer, there was talk of Kuznetsov returning to his hometown Chelyabinsk and rejoining Traktor, where he began his career.

Dragons add to defense

Defenseman Colby Williams is swapping Sochi for Shanghai (or at least St. Petersburg) after a trade over the weekend. The 31-year-old Canadian has 234 KHL games since he arrived in Vladivostok to help Admiral reach the 2023 playoff. Later he represented CSKA and Lada before joining Sochi in the summer. But after just 5 games (0 points, 18:16 time on ice) he’s off again to join the Dragons.

Eight straight for CSKA

Igor Nikitin’s CSKA extended its hot streak to eight games – including some scorelines uncharacteristic of the coach’s teams. Nikitin is notorious for his rigid defensive structures, making it almost impossible to find a breakthrough once his team is in front. So a 6-5 win over SKA was exactly the kind of roller-coaster that nobody would expect. And the eighth victory, a shoot-out squeaker against cross-town rival Dynamo might not have been straight out of the coach’s playbook either. A hat-trick from Maxim Letunov – all three on the power play – threatened to derail the in-form Muscovites. But an action-packed game ended 3-3, and Klim Kostin was the only man to succeed in the shoot-out.

CSKA leads First Cup race

Those latest wins for CSKA boosted the team’s position in the First Cup, an on-going tournament between the six KHL teams who participated in the inaugural Soviet championship 80 years ago. In head-to-head games between those clubs, CSKA has a four-point lead over second-placed Avtomobilist, although the Motormen are the undefeated team in the competition. Dynamo got its first point from that shoot-out loss, while SKA is second from bottom with one win from three games to date.

Goldobin heads scoring race

With 18 (3+15) points from 10 games, SKA’s Nikolai Goldobin is three points clear in the KHL scoring race. His line with Sergei Plotnikov and Vasily Glotov was in storming form in Saturday’s game against Admiral, involved in almost every goal in a 5-5 tie. Youngster Matvei Korotky settled the outcome in a shoot-out, securing victory for head coach Igor Larionov in his 300th game behind a KHL bench.

Sutter stars for Shanghai

Riley Sutter came into the season late, but he’s making up for lost time. The Dragons’ forward has picked up points in each of his five games so far, helping his team to a four-game winning streak. That run came to an end at Severstal on Saturday, but Sutter got his team’s only goal to move to 7 (4+3) in five games.

Symmetrical scorelines

Avtomobilist and Amur played two games in three days in Yekaterinburg. And, oddly enough, the games were almost a mirror image. Avto won the first 3-0, recording a third straight victory. But two days later, it was the exact opposite: the Tigers took a 3-0 verdict to make it three wins in four games.

Vyazovoi’s shocker

Two Russian goalies scored goals this week. In the NHL, Igor Shestyorkin earned plaudits for his empty-netter for the Rangers. But in the KHL, Semyon Vyazovoi will be wishing the cameras were turned off for his blunder against Sibir. Early in the first period he came out of his net to field a hopeful dump from the opposition. Inexplicably, he attempted a pass across the face of his unguarded net – and got the angles horribly wrong, slicing the puck into his net. Although Salavat Yulaev recovered and twice tied the game, Sibir claimed a 3-2 verdict.

Sochi stuns Ufa

Earlier in the week, before the Gusev deal was finalized, Sochi pulled off one of the most sensational results of the season to date. A  6-2 thrashing of Salavat Yulaev delivered only the second win of the campaign for the Leopards. Defenseman Timur Akhiyarov had four assists – the highest-scoring game of his career to date – Yegor Petukhov (2+1) and Matvei Guskov (1+2) had three apiece. On the same night, Shanghai Dragons beat Metallurg 4-1, recording a fourth successive victory.