Was it just last week that hockey fans were watching the final few games of the 2022-23 NHL season wrap up? Well, it was two weeks ago, but still – it seems like one hockey season has barely ended and here comes the next one already. The KHL this week released its 2023-24 schedule and we’re basically two months away from season’s first faceoff.
As they did last season, KHL teams will play 68 regular-season games each in 2023-24, with the top eight in each Conference (West and East) making the playoffs. But there are a couple of major changes to the KHL’s rules for this coming season, starting with the playoff format. The first post-season round, as in previous seasons, will feature 1v8, 2v7, etc. in each Conference (the winners of each Conference’s two divisions will be seeded first and second). But thereafter the surviving teams will “cross over,” with the top remaining seed in each Conference playing the lowest remaining seed in the other, and so on. It is hoped that this will shake up the playoff picture a little bit, particularly as regards the West Conference; seven of the last eight West Finals have featured CSKA Moscow against SKA St. Petersburg.
The other big change involves foreign players in the league. This issue has been a bone of contention between the KHL and the Russian Hockey Federation (a branch of the Russian Ministry of Sport) for roughly one forever, with the league wanting more foreign players and the FHR wanting fewer. However, recent legislation in Russia has given the Hockey Federation the whip-hand in the dispute, and this summer they lowered the number of allowable foreign players per Russian KHL team to three from five (note that Belarusan and Kazakh players do not count as “foreign” when playing for Russian KHL teams). The Federation hopes that this will result in more opportunities at the KHL level for home-grown players, the KHL leadership hopes that they can renegotiate the issue in a year’s time. More on this as we go along — it will undoubtedly be a major consideration as the teams go about roster-building for 2023-24.
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The new KHL campaign, the league’s 16th, will begin on September 1st, when two-time defending Gagarin Cup champions CSKA Moscow host last season’s runners-up Ak Bars Kazan. The champs will then round out their season-opening homestand with games against Admiral Vladivostok and Metallurg Magnitogorsk before heading out on the road.
Speaking of Admiral Vladivostok, they were one of 2022-23’s pleasant surprises; under-talented (to be brutally honest) and generally over-looked, the Far-Easterners not only made the playoffs but even advanced to the last eight after stunning Salavat Yulaev Ufa in a six-game first-round upset. Admiral’s 23-24 campaign will begin with a very tough road trip; they’ll be several time zones to the west of home, opening in Moscow and environs with games in the capital region against CSKA, Vityaz, and Spartak, then moving eastward to face Torpedo and Avangard.
Igor Larionov’s Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod team will be another one to keep an eye on in 2023-24; The former Soviet Championship and NHL star lived up to his professorial nickname in 2022-23, guiding Torpedo to a top-four spot in the West Conference and a first-round series win over Dynamo Moscow. Larionov’s crew will open the new season on the road against Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, before heading home to face SKA, Dinamo Minsk, Admiral, and Kunlun Red Star.
Further down the Volga from Nizhny Novgorod, we find Lada Togliatti, the KHL’s lone new team for 2023-24 (the KHL will be a 23-team league next season, up from 22). Lada have been bouncing back and forth between leagues a bit; they were an original KHL team in 2008-09, but dropped to the second-tier VHL after two seasons, remaining in the lower league until 2014. They were back in the KHL from 2014 to 2018 before returning to the VHL, where they have spent the past five seasons. Lada’s third go-round in the KHL will begin at home on September 2nd; their season-opening four-game homestand will have them take on Traktor, SKA, Salavat Yulaev, and Amur, before they head to Chelyabinsk to take on Traktor in the first road game.
We’ll take a more in-depth look at the coming KHL season later on this summer!
