We start the season in Balashikha

On September 4, Admiral will play their first game of the Fonbet KHL Championship. The opponents are Vityaz. The Sailors met the Moscow region club in Minsk this summer. The game ended with a score of 7:4. During the meeting, Primorye team managed to win back three pucks, having made a bright comeback. For the Vityaz team this game was the first in the preseason. The Red-and-White team played six games afterward, winning three of them, including a meeting with reigning champion Metallurg. But the results of those games are just statistics that won't be remembered in a week. The final numbers on the scoreboard of official games are what comes to the forefront.
In the new season, familiar faces will be working on results for Vityaz. The management of the Moscow Region team retained 85% of the players. Scott Wilson’s move to Metallurg and Alexander Yaremchuk’s transfer to Avangard are among the noticeable losses. These players of offense were among the team's top 5 scorers. Nature abhors a vacuum, and now two Canadian forwards will try to break into the team's top players (Nicholas Baptiste and Frederik Gauthier). Nicholas Baptiste moved to Balashikha as the reigning Finnish champion, and Frederik Gauthier is famous for 40 games in the NHL and big shape - 195 centimeters of height at 108 kilograms. But that's not the end of Vityaz's new players list. Another signing in the offseason was with 25-year-old defenseman Dean Stewart from the AHL.

Familiar faces
In the offseason, Vityaz added Dmitry Buchelnikov to the roster. At the same time, the contract with the forwards runs two years. Of course, Vladivostok fans wanted to see Dmitry return, but he'll only appear at Fetisov Arena once next season.
Another newcomer to Vityaz was ex-Sailor Yegor Morozov, whose journey to the Far East was not so bright, however the forward played 20 games in the uniform of Admiral.

Upcoming match
The teams will play their first game of the season in Balashikha on the ice of the Y. Lyapkin Arena Balashikha. The starting face-off will be at 19:00. You can find the broadcast of the game on the League's video portal.