Floundering Lada up first in 2026

7 January 2026

SKA will get the new calendar year started with an important home duel against struggling Lada Tolyatti at the Ice Palace.

SEASON TO FORGET

It may only be the start of January, but the campaign is already practically over for under-performing Lada.

Rooted at the foot of the Western Conference, the Tolyatti-based outfit find themselves trailing eighth-placed SKA by a whopping 21 points! And, just to make matters worse, SKA have three games in hand; even the most optimistic Lada fan would surely admit that any hope of qualifying for the Gagarin Cup playoffs has long gone.

The statistics really do make for damning reading. An underwhelming tally of 11 wins from 42 matches is already bad enough, but the fact that they’re the KHL’s worst team when it comes to both powerplay effectiveness and penalty-killing reinforces just how poor they’ve been.

Lada are indeed coming into tonight’s battle on the back of six successive defeats. Nevertheless, they have offered stiff opposition in several matches despite their disappointing results, notably tallying a hard-earned point at Avangard after failing to hold on in the third period and only losing by one at Avtomobilist. Other results worth pointing out this season include an overtime triumph in Kazan and taking Dynamo Moscow to penalties in the capital.

Head coach Pavel Desyatkov doesn’t have a weak squad at his disposal either. Lada’s first attacking line consisting of the dangerous Tomas Jurco, Riley Sawchuk and Andrei Altybarmakyan is good enough to cause the league’s best teams several problems, while talented Canadian defensemen Colby Williams – a recent arrival from CSKA Moscow – and Alex Cotton provide a real threat from the blue line. Experienced journeyman goalkeeper Ivan Bocharov has been pretty solid in the Lada net and is expected to start this evening.

This will be the third meeting between these two teams in the current campaign, with SKA having claimed an emphatic 6:1 victory in Saint Petersburg and subsequently a tense 3:0 win away from home in Tolyatti. Both of those particular fixtures took place in September.

LEADERS*

GOALKEEPERS

Ivan Bocharov: 28 matches, 9 wins, 91.5% save percentage, 3.13 GAA

Alexander Trushkov: 16 matches, 2 wins, 90.5% save percentage, 3.62 GAA, 1 shutout

DEFENSEMEN

Alex Cotton: 12 (2+10) points, +5

Artyom Zemchyonok: 6 (1+5) points, -2

Vladislav Syomin: 6 (1+5) points, -14

FORWARDS

Riley Sawchuk: 25 (14+11) points, -3

Andrei Altybarmakyan: 24 (11+13) points, +7

Dmitry Kugryshev: 23 (5+18) points, -10

*Only taking players currently on Lada’s books into account

SPECIAL TEAMS

123 attempts, 13 goals, 10.6% conversion rate, 22^nd place

138 penalties, 51 conceded goals, 63.0% success rate, 3 shorthanded goals, 22^nd place

WHERE TO WATCH

Puck-drop is scheduled for 17:00 local time. You can purchase a live video broadcast on the KHL’s official website, whereas text updates are available on our official X account.