Round two underway

Last week brought a thrilling conclusion to the first round of the playoffs – in front of record-breaking crowds – and an exciting start to round two. 

Hard to separate

The week’s action began with the outstanding action from round one. Salavat Yulaev eventually saw off seventh seed Sibir in game seven thanks to a 2-1 victory in Ufa. Meanwhile, Avtomobilist and Ak Bars – fourth and fifth in the East – proved much harder to decide. The teams remained deadlocked into a second period of overtime before Kirill Semyonov’s power play goal sent the Kazan team into a second-round meeting with Dynamo Moscow. 

Thrills continue in Moscow

And the early evidence is that the Moscow-Kazan clash is going to be a doozy. Game one had plenty to get excited about. Ak Bars showed no sign of fatigue after its battle in Yekaterinburg, leading 2-0 in the first period and getting up 3-1 in the third. Ex-Dynamo man Eric O’Dell potted his third goal of the playoffs. The home team rallied to tie it up at 3-3 with 10 to play and the momentum seemed to be turning Blue-and-White. However, there was more to come from the visitor and goals from Ilya Safonov and another former Dynamo player, Dmitrij Jaskin, gave Ak Bars the edge. Don’t miss game two this afternoon. 

Ruzicka rescues Spartak ...

There’s a big contender for fightback of the season in the meeting between Salavat Yulaev and Spartak. The home team was up 4-3 in Ufa and seemed poised to open a 2-0 lead in the second-round series. But Adam Ruzicka had other ideas. He scored a dramatic tying goal with 0.2 seconds left on the clock to force overtime, then won it for the Muscovites 73 seconds into the extras, completing the most clutch of hat-tricks for good measure. That means it’s 1-1 as the series moves to Moscow and, for the first time in this year’s playoffs, Salavat Yulaev played a game that went to the road team. 

... and Traktor grabs last-minute salvation

Traktor also produced a late, game-saving surge in Chelyabinsk. Dinamo Minsk, playing in the second round for the first time, was up 2-1 going into the last minute. Then the home team potted three goals in 22 seconds to secure a dramatic win. Maxim Shabanov tied it up, Vitaly Kravtsev got the winner and there was even time for Artyom Blazhievsky’s empty-net goal to seal the deal. 

First post season loss for Loko

After sweeping Torpedo in round one, Lokomotiv had an unpleasant surprise when Avangard arrived at the start of the second round. A 1-4 loss on home ice, powered by a couple of goals from Nail Yakupov, saw Igor Nikitin’s team defeated for the first time in this year’s playoffs. But that was only the start of the story: game two saw Lokomotiv win by the same 4-1 scoreline and there’s everything to play for when the action resumes tomorrow in Omsk.

Attendance record

The 2025 playoffs set a new first-round attendance record. The 47 games attracted 471,689 spectators, at an average of 10,035. That improves last season’s total, when 43 games had 407,270 fans (average 9,471).

Two stars leave SKA

With St. Petersburg coming out of the playoffs early, two of the team’s most exciting young players are moving on. Ivan Demidov, 19, has already joined Montreal Canadiens, the NHL team that drafted him as #5 pick last year. Demidov made his KHL debut in 2022/2023 but this term was his first full season. He played 65 games and had 49 (19+30) points. He’s followed over the Atlantic by star defenseman Alexander Nikishin, who links up with Carolina after the Hurricanes drafted him back in 2020. Nikishin was SKA captain this season and had 46 (17+29) points in 61 regular-season games. He broke into Spartak’s team back in 2019/2020 and joined SKA in 2022 after representing Russia at the Olympics. In total he has 323 KHL games with 62 goals and 130 points. SKA retains the Russian rights to both players.

Cap raised

The latest KHL Board of Directors meeting agreed to raise the salary cap and floor for the coming season. In 2025/2026 the floor goes up to 475 million rubles then in 2026/2027 both the floor and the cap increase by 50 million. By 2027/2028 the cap will be one billion rubles and the floor will be 600 million. There are also changes to the system of bonus payments that don’t fall under the salary cap.