Lokomotiv beat Traktor and won the 2025/26 KHL season opening cup

An hour before the start of the match, at the foot of the Arena-2000, there is practically the same atmosphere as three months ago before the Gagarin Cup finals. Enthusiastic crowds of Lokomotiv fans and scattered guests from Chelyabinsk. As if the fight for the trophy had never ended. But in the arena itself, everything reminds us of who won the Cup in May. On the cube is the slogan – "the first team", in the columns – the immortal hit of the Queen group – We Are The Champions.

Usually the opposing team is introduced first before the match, but this time the "railwaymen" run out onto the ice to the roar of the stands. After them, two Alexanders bring the Gagarin Cup onto the ice – Lokomotiv captain Elesin and the most valuable player of the 2005 playoffs Radulov. The championship banner is raised to the arena's ceiling.

This is where the savoring of the sweet moments of the previous season basically ended. In the new season, everything essentially starts from the beginning. Moreover, Lokomotiv has a new head coach – Canadian Bob Hartley. The roster has remained practically unchanged. How Hartley, who has already led Omsk Avangard to the Gagarin Cup, will manage it is one of the intrigues of the championship.

What kind of game the North American would set for Lokomotiv became clear from the first minutes. Aggression, pressing, constant pressure – basically, everything that Hartley's predecessor Igor Nikitin, who now coaches Moscow CSKA, preached.

The hosts' powerful attacking impulse was thwarted by a series of penalties – perhaps the cost of excessive desire. Traktor took advantage of this and could well have opened the scoring. The closest to hitting the Yaroslavl goal was the Chelyabinsk newcomer, the best scorer and sniper of the previous regular season, Joshua Livo. He left Ufa's Salavat Yulaev with a scandal and had a chance to distinguish himself in the first period of the game for his new team: in the 14th minute, the puck hit the post after Livo's shot. Nevertheless, there were no goals in the first period.

In the second period, Lokomotiv players were not sent off. As a result, 20 minutes passed in continuous attacks by the hosts. The ratio of shots on target – 15-2 in favor of Loko – speaks for itself. But they were able to achieve their goal only a few seconds before the break. Egor Surin threw it to the crease, Canadian goalie of Traktor Chris Giger blocked the puck, but right into the skate of Arseniy Koromyslov, from whom it crawled into the goal. In football, this would be an own goal, but in hockey there are no own goals. So the first goal of the new season was attributed to Surin.

Finding themselves in a catch-up position, Traktor for the first time in this match went forward with emphasis. And at the start of the third period, Daniil Isaev had some work to do. However, Lokomotiv's counterattacks were also quite sharp. In one of them, Traktor goalie Driedzher blocked the puck almost in front of him, Artem Sergeyev picked it up and literally started shooting at the empty net, but missed.

Meanwhile, Lokomotiv started getting penalties again. And this time, Traktor took advantage of the majority. A long rally by the Chelyabinsk team ended with an accurate shot by Pierrick Dube – 1:1.

The opponents did not manage to identify the winner in regular time. As, incidentally, in the additional five minutes. And in the series of shootouts, the hosts were luckier 2:1. The winning attempt was on account of Maxim Berezkin.