The 2025–26 KHL season was the 18th season of the Kontinental Hockey League. 22 teams competed in 68 regular season games, with 182 playing days, between 5 September 2025 and 20 March 2026.
Season changes For the 2025–26 season, the competition was reduced to 22 teams, following the announcement that inaugural member HC Vityaz were initially withdrawing from the league for the season due to financial constraints, on 24 June 2025. After an emergency league meeting with the board of directors, it was announced that Vityaz would not be eligible for a return to the competition until 2030. As a result of Vityaz's exit, and in order for conference balance, Lada Togliatti who played in the Kharlamov Division of the Eastern Conference were moved to the Bobrov Division of the Western Conference.
On 7 August 2025, with Kunlun Red Star undergoing a change of ownership, the club announced they would rebrand as the Shanghai Dragons, and relocate from Beijing to Shanghai, while still being initially based in St. Petersburg, Russia, and would retain their place in the Tarasov Division.
As a result of Vityaz's withdrawal the regular season was reduced to 748 games for 182 gamedays, with each club played 68 regular season engagements. Since the Russian and Belarusian teams will not be participating in the Olympic Games, there will only be a break in February, from February 6th to 9th, for the KHL 2026 Fonbet All-Star Game. The first break in December will be between December 8th and 15th for the Channel One Cup.
The league's salary floor has been raised to 475 million rubles. The salary cap stayed at 900 million rubles, excluding certain bonuses.
In addition, in shootouts teams would now have three attempts instead of five.
The league continued the previous two seasons playoff format for the Gagarin Cup playoffs with a cross playoff system in which teams participate in the Conference Quarterfinals before a cross conference switch and re-seeding take place from the second round.
Teams The 22 teams were split into four divisions: the Bobrov Division and the Tarasov Division as part of the Western Conference, with the Kharlamov Division and the Chernyshev Division as part of the Eastern Conference.
Western ConferenceEastern Conference Bobrov Division Tarasov Division Kharlamov Division Chernyshev Division Lada Togliatti CSKA Moscow Ak Bars Kazan Admiral Vladivostok SKA Saint Petersburg Dinamo Minsk Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg Amur Khabarovsk HC Sochi Dynamo Moscow Metallurg Magnitogorsk Avangard Omsk Spartak Moscow Lokomotiv Yaroslavl Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk Barys Astana Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod Severstal Cherepovets Traktor Chelyabinsk Salavat Yulaev Ufa Shanghai Dragons Sibir Novosibirsk
Each team will feature in 68 games in which every team will play each other once at home. This results in 21 home and 21 away games. In addition, there will be 10 home and 10 away games against teams from the same conference, plus six special games per team. Points were awarded for each game, where two points were awarded for all victories, regardless of whether it was in regulation time, in overtime or after game-winning shots. One point was awarded for losing in overtime or game-winning shots, and zero points for losing in regulation time.
Opening Cup The season started on 5 September 2025 with the Opening Cup. The 2025–26 Opening Cup was contested between Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, the 2024–25 Gagarin Cup Champions and Traktor Chelyabinsk, the 2024–25 Gagarin Cup runner-up. Lokomotiv won the game 2-1 in the shootout.
Standings Western Conference
Eastern Conference
Continental Cup
Gagarin Cup playoffs The Gagarin Cup playoffs started on 23 March 2026.
Bracket
After the Conference Quarterfinals a conference cross-over and re-seeding commenced During the Gagarin Cup Finals the team that finished with higher seed in their conference had home ice (if both teams finished with the same seed the team that earned most points during the regular season had home ice) Source: KHL
Final standings Rank Team 1 Lokomotiv Yaroslavl 2 Ak Bars Kazan 3 Metallurg Magnitogorsk 4 Avangard Omsk 5 Dinamo Minsk 6 CSKA Moscow 7 Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod 8 Salavat Yulaev Ufa 9 Severstal Cherepovets 10 Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg 11 SKA Saint Petersburg 12 Dynamo Moscow 13 Spartak Moscow 14 Traktor Chelyabinsk 15 Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk 16 Sibir Novosibirsk 17 Amur Khabarovsk 18 Barys Astana 19 Shanghai Dragons 20 Admiral Vladivostok 21 Lada Togliatti 22 HC Sochi
All-Star Game
The 2026 Kontinental Hockey League All-Star Game was hosted at the UMMC Arena in Yekaterinburg on February 7-8, 2026. It used a brand new format with 4 teams: the Ural Stars (players from Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg, Metallurg Magnitogorsk, Salavat Yulaev Ufa and Traktor Chelyabinsk), the World Stars (non-Russian players), the U23 Stars (young players) and the RUS Stars (other selected players).
The RUS Stars won the All-Star Game, defeating the U23 Stars 9-2 in the final. Danil Aimurzin scored five goals in the final and was named the most valuable player.
Individual achievements
Scoring records
Sam Anas from HC Dinamo Minsk matched the single-season scoring record with 89 (32+57) points in 67 regular season games, matching the total of Nikita Gusev in the 2023-24 KHL season.
Damir Sharipzyanov from Avangard Omsk beat the single-season defenceman scoring record with 67 (23+44) points across 66 regular season games.
Mitchell Miller from Ak Bars Kazan beat the Gagarin Cup Playoffs defenceman scoring record with 23 (7+16) points in 20 games, and was the first defenceman ever to become the top scorer of the KHL playoffs.
Vadim Shipachyov from HC Dinamo Minsk became the first player to score 1000 points in his KHL career with an assist in a January 10 game against Admiral Vladivostok.
Golden Helmet Award (All-Star Team) Position Player Team GDaniil IsayevLokomotiv Yaroslavl DMitchell MillerAk Bars Kazan DDamir SharipzyanovAvangard Omsk FSam AnasHC Dinamo Minsk FKonstantin OkulovAvangard Omsk FAlexander RadulovLokomotiv Yaroslavl
Source: KHL
Alexei Cherepanov Award (Rookie of the Year)
Winner: Alexander Zharovsky (Salavat Yulaev Ufa)
Other nominees: Mikhail Fedorov (Metallurg Magnitogorsk), Nikolai Polyakov (SKA Saint-Petersburg)
Goaltender of the Year
Winner: Nikita Serebryakov (Avangard Omsk)
Other nominees: Semyon Vyazovoy (Salavat Yulaev Ufa), Daniil Isayev (Lokomotiv Yaroslavl)
Coach of the Year
Winner: Anvar Gatiyatulin (Ak Bars Kazan)
Other nominees: Andrei Razin (Metallurg Magnitogorsk), Viktor Kozlov (Salavat Yulaev Ufa)
See also 2025–26 Asia League Ice Hockey season
References
External links