Ak Bars – Traktor, CSKA – SKA: meeting history and match review

The Ak Bars – Traktor and CSKA– SKA teams will play matches in the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) regular season on Tuesday, March 31. The meetings will be held at 19:30 Moscow time in Kazan and Moscow. The history of the confrontation and an overview of previous games are in the Izvestia material.

The history of team meetings and the results of previous games

Ak Bars won the game, which took place on March 29 at the Valery Belousov Traktor Ice Arena, 3-2 in the second overtime. Thus, the score in the series became 3:1 in favor of the Kazan team. Ilya Safonov scored the winning goal in the 92nd minute. At the moment, Ak Bars is on the fourth line of the KHL 2025/2026 with 94 points. Traktor ranks 14th with 75 points.

In St. Petersburg on March 29, the Moscow Army team won the game with a score of 4 against the local SKA.:2. Thus, the score in the series became 3:1 in favor of the Moscow team. In the second period, striker Denis Guryanov scored a double and allowed CSKA to lead the game. Currently, the Moscow Army team occupies the seventh place in the standings with 84 points, and SKA — the ninth with 81 points.

Match Review

Traktor Chelyabinsk was one step away from being eliminated from the Gagarin Cup following the results of four series meetings against Ak Bars Kazan. After two games in Kazan and two in Chelyabinsk, the score in the confrontation was 3:1 (2:3 FROM, 2:4, 3:2, 2:3 2OT) in favor of Tatarstan. Now the only chance for Evgeny Koreshkov's wards to extend the playing season remains a victory in an away match. Only if Chelyabinsk is successful will the series return to the sixth game at Traktor's home arena. In the fourth meeting, Ak Bars' victory was secured by goals from Dmitry Yashkin and Artem Galimov, as well as Ilya Safonov's decisive goal scored in the 92nd minute of the second overtime.

However, defender Grigory Dronov may return to the Chelyabinsk club. The hockey player went with the team to Kazan, despite the fact that he had not been on the ice since March 13 and missed all four matches of the current playoff series. The coaching staff will make a decision on his participation in the upcoming game immediately before the match.

CSKA Moscow came close to reaching the second round of the KHL playoffs, scoring three wins in four matches against SKA St. Petersburg. One misfire in past meetings (3:2 2OT, 4:2, 0:1, 4:2) allowed the capital's army to take a dominant position in the confrontation.

At the same time, the situation is becoming critical for the club from the Northern Capital: the team risks ending the fight at an early stage for the second season in a row. Igor Larionov's team's only chance to continue the fight remains to win the upcoming match in Moscow. Only if SKA is successful will the series return to St. Petersburg for the sixth game. In the last meeting, the advantage of Igor Nikitin's team was provided by the goals of Prokhor Poltapov and Vitaly Abramov, as well as a double by Denis Guryanov.

The playoffs run from March 23 to May 23, 2026.

Starting lineups Ak Bars – Traktor

Ak Bars

Forwards: Vladimir Alistrov, Alexander Barabanov, Artur Brovkin, Artem Galimov, Grigory Denisenko, Nikita Dynyak, Radel Zamaltdinov, Dmitry Katelevsky, Denis Komkov, Egor Potapov, Alexey Pustozerov, Ilya Safonov, Kirill Semenov, Semyon Terekhov, Nathan Todd, Mikhail Fisenko, Alexander Khmelevsky, Dmitry Yashkin.

Defenders: Ilya Karpukhin, Konstantin Luchevnikov, Nikita Lyamkin, Alexey Marchenko, Mitchell Miller, Stepan Terekhov, Albert Yarullin.

Goalkeepers: Timur Bilyalov, Maxim Arefyev, Ivan Kuznetsov.

"Tractor"

Forwards: Joshua Livo, Mikhail Grigorenko, Vitaly Kravtsov, Maxim Dzhioshvili, Andrey Svetlakov, Vasily Glotov, Egor Korshkov, Alexander Kadeikin, Mikhail Goryunov-Rolgizer, Alexey Rykmanov, Stepan Gorbunov, Vladimir Zharkov, Andrey Nikonov.

Defenders: Jordan Gross, Grigory Dronov, Logan Day, Arseniy Koromyslov, Andrey Pribilsky, Sergey Telegin, Yaroslav Fedoseev, Michal Tchaikovsky.

Goalkeepers: Daniil Kiselyov, Dmitry Nikolaev, Savely Sherstnev.

Starting lineups of CSKA – SKA

CSKA

Forwards: Vitaly Abramov, Dmitry Buchelnikov, Rhett Gardner, Denis Guryanov, Ivan Drozdov, Denis Zernov, Sergey Kalinin, Pavel Karnaukhov, Nikolay Kovalenko, Klim Kostin, Oleg Maistrenko, Takhir Mingachev, Prokhor Poltapov, Maxim Sorkin, Alexey Churkin.

Defenders: Egor Bryutov, Vladislav Yeremenko, Nikita Nesterov, Nikita Okhotyuk, Ivan Patrikhaev, Jeremy Roy, Dmitry Samorukov, Mac Hollowell, Nick Ebert.

Goalkeepers: Alexander Privalov, Dmitry Gamzin, Alexander Samonov.

SKA

Forwards: Joseph Blandisi, Sergey Plotnikov, Scott Wilson, Rocco Grimaldi, Matvey Polyakov, Mikhail Vorobyov, Nikita Dishkovsky, Marat Khairullin, Nikita Nedopekin, Matvey Korotky, Nikolai Goldobin, Valentin Zykov, Vladislav Romanov.

Defenders: Pavel Koledov, Andrey Pedan, Sergey Sapego, Marcus Phillips, Brennan Menell, Egor Savikov, Egor Zelenov, Danila Galenyuk.

Goalkeepers: Sergey Ivanov, Gleb Saranchuk, Artemy Pleshkov.

The final lineups for the upcoming match will be announced before the game.

All important news is on the Izvestia channel in the MAX messenger.