Lada motoring towards the Ice Palace

Lada Tolyatti, who were switched over from the Eastern to the Western Conference for the 2025/2026 KHL campaign, are the second side to rock up to the Ice Palace to face SKA this season.

PROMISING START

It’s been a positive – albeit mixed – start to the season for Lada. To the surprise of some, the Samara Region-based outfit produced a strong display against highly-rated Avtomobilist in their opener, recording an impressive 4:3 victory at home. They followed that up with a slender loss by the same scoreline to Torpedo in Nizhny Novgorod, but their performance level across the two games has been more than solid for a team expected to be one of the conference’s outsiders.

Lada did effectively go about strengthening their squad over the summer. Canadian forward Riley Sawchuk has offered attacking potency since joining from Finland’s KooKoo, picking up two points and catching the eye in his line with the experienced Dmitry Kugryshev and familiar face Andrei Chivilyov. Incidentally, 25-year-old Chivilyov has been Lada’s stand-out performer so far, grabbing four points from his team’s maiden two matches.

Canadian defensive pair Alex Cotton and Mac Hollowell joined with a view to offering much-needed attacking threat at the blue line. Joshua Lawrence – another representative of Canada – transferred from Finnish organisation Pelicans and will be expected to take a leading role in attack, and the same can be said for the once Boston Bruins prospect Alexander Khokhlachyov who most recently competed for Sochi. Ex-SKA defensemen Vladislav Syomin, Artyom Zemchyonok and Yegor Rykov are on Lada’s books, currently competing in the first and third lines respectively. Syomin is indeed renowned for his bomb of a one-timer.

Interestingly, former Dynamo Moscow and Lokomotiv Yaroslavl goalkeeper Ivan Bocharov was predicted to become Lada’s first choice after being snapped up in the off-season, but he’s yet to receive any minutes to date with Alexander Trushkov the preferred option.

Lada, managed by ex-Spartak Moscow coach Boris Mironov, will more than likely opt for a counter-attacking approach in this game, and they certainly boast the required tools to ask plenty of questions of the SKA defence which has been far from watertight in the first three matches against Shanghai (4:7), Torpedo (2:3 OT) and Traktor Chelyabinsk (5:2). The ability to track back towards their own zone with speed and discipline will be vital for our players if they’re to avoid an upset.

LEADERS

GOALKEEPERS

Alexander Trushkov: 2 games, 2 defeats, 88.7% save percentage, 3.54 GAA

DEFENSEMEN

Vladislav Syomin: 1+0, +2

Maxim Belousov: 0+1, +1

Mac Hollowell: 0+1, +1

FORWARDS

Andrei Chivilyov: 1+3, +1

Dmitry Kugryshev: 2+1, 0

Riley Sawchuk, 1+1, 0

SPECIAL TEAMS

PP

6 attempts, 0 goals, 0% success rate, 22^nd place

PK

8 penalties, 2 conceded goals, 75% success rate, 17^th place

WHERE TO WATCH

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