Pre-season phenomena: how KHL clubs are preparing for the start of the championship

The last stage of the clubs' pre-season training has arrived in Russian hockey. A new KHL regular season draw will start on September 3. In the meantime, most teams are holding the final pre-season tournaments. This week there will be four of them — in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Omsk and Magnitogorsk. They will show in what form the teams approach the first official matches.

Moscow Mayor's Cup

The traditional end—of-August tournament in the Russian capital this time brought together a record number of participants - eight clubs. The Megasport Arena on Khodynka will host Spartak Moscow, CSKA and Dynamo, last season's finalist Ak Bars Kazan, Shanghai Dragons based in St. Petersburg, Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg, Dinamo Minsk and Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod.

All the teams have been updated in the offseason. Ak Bars has lost a number of key players who helped the team compete for the Gagarin Cup: defenders Ilya Karpukhin and Stepan Falkovsky, forwards Alexander Barabanov, Nathan Todd, Ilya Safonov and Dmitry Yashkin have left for other clubs.

At the same time, Kazan retained goalkeeper Timur Bilyalov, forwards Artem Galimov and Grigory Denisenko. Especially important was the extension of Galimov, who has been linked with a possible departure to the NHL for several years.

Strengthening is still more difficult. Alexey Byvaltsev from Avtomobilist and Andrei Stas, ex-captain of Dinamo Minsk, joined the team, and on August 25, the club signed experienced American forward Kevin Hayes for a year. There are no other notable acquisitions yet, although last season the Ak Bars management strengthened the squad already during the championship.

Dynamo Moscow has changed more seriously. In the spring, Leonid Tambiev, who had previously worked on Igor Larionov's staff at SKA, became the head coach. Among his main achievements are two Petrov Cups with Dynamo St. Petersburg and Saryarka Karaganda, as well as two KHL playoffs with Admiral, including the second round in 2023, which was the highest achievement not only of the club, but of the entire Vladivostok hockey.

Now, for the first time, Tambiev has headed a top club. Dynamo also changed its general and sports directors, and Nikita Gusev, the main star of the last three seasons, has not yet signed a new contract.

At the same time, the team was joined by a large group of experienced KHL players, among them defenders Artem Blazhievsky, Sergey Zborovsky and Nikita Novikov, forwards Nikita Korostelev, Maxim Letunov, Nick Merkley, Nikita Tertyshny, Bulat Shafigullin and Pavel Shen. There have not been such large-scale changes in the blue and white team for four years. However, Novikov, who returned after three years in North America, claims that the atmosphere in the team has not changed much.

"Professionals work here, so there is no global difference from what it was before,— Novikov told Izvestia. — Of course, Tambiev's requirements are different from other coaches. Each coach has his own requirements. We're all getting used to them, working at full capacity. We can say that we are already used to working in such a schedule. The main feature of working with Leonid Grigorievich is the intensity of training.

In recent years, Dynamo has been associated with head coach Alexei Kudashov, who served in this position from the summer of 2021 to November 2025. Last spring, he was appointed head coach of Avtomobilist. That's where Karpukhin and Barabanov came from Ak Bars. Moreover, the latter became the highest-paid KHL player. According to Sport-Express, his base salary is 100 million rubles per season, plus 24 million rubles of a commercial contract. The 2018 Olympic champion will also earn 50 million rubles if he gets into the top 3 scorers of the regular season.

In addition, Yekaterinburg players were reinforced by four more forwards: Anton Slepyshev, the silver medalist of the 2022 Olympics, three-time Gagarin Cup winner with CSKA, Adam Ruziczka, the Slovakian who scandalously left Spartak in the winter, Alexander Kadeikin, the finalist of the Gagarin Cup with Traktor Chelyabinsk, and Danil Gushchin, who returned from the NHL.

Spartak traded Nikita Korostelev for the powerful Canadian forward Maxim Comtois, who spent the last two seasons at Dynamo Moscow. Goalkeeper Ivan Fedotov, the silver medalist of the 2022 Olympics and the winner of the 2022 Gagarin Cup with CSKA, came from the NHL. Strikers Alexander Galchenyuk and Evgeny Svechnikov transferred from Khabarovsk Amur. But the main changes happened at headquarters. Spartak's head coach Alexei Zhamnov is still in his post, but he has been joined by assistants in the person of the highly experienced Peteris Skudra and Evgeny Koreshkov.

The Shanghai Dragons changed their leadership in the offseason: the legendary Ilya Kovalchuk became the club's president, and Evgeny Artyukhin, one of the best power forwards in the history of the KHL, took over the post of general manager. A large-scale reinforcement was carried out, among the newcomers Yashkin, who left Ak Bars, goalkeeper Amir Miftakhov, a finalist in the AHL playoffs, as well as a whole group of North American foreign players.

In the past two seasons, Dinamo Minsk has achieved the highest achievements in the playoffs in its history - reaching the second round. But due to a conflict with managers, head coach Dmitry Kvartalnov left his post. The talented young Belarusian strikers Vitaly Pinchuk, Vadim Moroz and Egor Borikov, who became team leaders in Minsk, left for the NHL.

Vadim Shipachev, one of the strongest central strikers in the history of the KHL, has left. We have not agreed on a contract extension with club legend Andrei Stas. Several North Americans and an experienced Russian forward, Sergey Kalinin, the 2018 Olympic champion, managed to strengthen. Sergey Brylin, a three-time Stanley Cup winner with the New Jersey Devils, who worked for many years in the Devils' system as an assistant coach, became the head coach. This will be his first independent work experience at Dynamo.

Against the background of other participants in the Moscow Mayor's Cup, CSKA and Torpedo have not been updated very much. They have retained their coaching staff and are systematically preparing for the season. The tournament starts on August 27 and ends on August 30.

"I understand that I had a chance in the NHL that I didn't take advantage of."

Metallurg hockey player Sergey Tolchinsky — about his career overseas, preparation for the season and the requirements of the head coach of the team

Romazan Memorial

The traditional pre-season tournament in Magnitogorsk began on August 25. On the first day, Ufa's Salavat Yulaev beat Chelyabinsk's Traktor (4:2), and local Metallurg won against Khabarovsk's Amur (3:2 OT). Magnitogorsk won the regular season by a margin last season, but stumbled in the semifinal playoff series against Ak Bars.

This was partly due to the fact that Dmitry Silantyev was seriously injured in the highly productive first team. In emergency mode, it was not possible to find a replacement for him in the top three with Vladimir Tkachev and Roman Kanzerov. Now Silantyev has recovered, but Kantserov left for the NHL. Nathan Todd was hired from Ak Bars to take his place in the first team.

"It's good that our squad hasn't changed much," Metallurg striker Sergei Tolchinsky told Izvestia. — Because we reached the semi—finals last season, it means that we did a lot of things right. And you don't need to change a lot — you just need to tweak some points a little.

Of the other participants in the tournament, it is worth noting Ufa's Salavat Yulaev, who signed a contract with Vadim Shipachev.

The Romazan Memorial will end on August 29.

Pancake Cup

On August 26, a tournament will start in Omsk with the participation of the local Avangard, the current Gagarin Cup winner of Yaroslavl Lokomotiv, Novosibirsk Sibir, Cherepovets Severstal and Nizhnekamsk Neftekhimik.

Avangard is starting its second full season under the leadership of Guy Boucher after being eliminated by Lokomotiv in the semi-finals of the Gagarin Cup. The team was reinforced by forward Joshua Livo, goalkeeper Ivan Prosvetov and striker Egor Afanasyev, as well as Kirill Adamchuk, Cedric Paquette and Artem Ilyenko, who returned from North America. At the same time, Omsk captain Damir Sharipzyanov will miss the start of the season due to injury.

Again, as a year ago, Lokomotiv focused on maintaining the championship squad, which had already won the second Gagarin Cup. In addition to appointing Kvartalnov, the Railwaymen limited themselves to signing two newcomers, Falkovsky and forward Giovanni Fiore from Avangard. Yaroslavl lost three foreign players from the permanent base — defender Martin Gernat, forwards Byron Fraz and Richard Panik.

Sibir has one of the most striking deals of the summer: star striker Evgeny Kuznetsov, two–time world champion, Stanley Cup winner in 2018, and Alexander Ovechkin's long-term partner in Washington, joined them.

The Blinov Cup will end on August 31.

The Puchkov Tournament

St. Petersburg will host the least representative pre-season tournament this year. Special attention will be focused on the local SKA, which is preparing for its second season under the leadership of Igor Larionov. During the off-season, the St. Petersburg army team has significantly updated its squad again, so the tournament will be one of the last opportunities for the coaching staff to test new combinations before the start of the championship.

From August 27 to August 29, SKA will play with two KHL rivals, Astana Barys and Vladivostok Admiral, as well as with their farm club SKA—NAVY, which plays in the All-Russian Hockey League (VHL). These matches should show how much the renewed Larionov team is ready for the start of the regular season.