Lokomotiv Rout Traktor 5-1 as Gordon's Rebuild Begins

Lokomotiv began the defence of their KHL title with a 5-1 win over Tractor Chelyabinsk in the season opener, and it was an 18-year-old who set the tone: forward Matvey Kotkov opened the scoring in the 9th minute.

Tractor's own dressing room and staff read the game differently depending on when they were watching. Head coach Scott Gordon said the match effectively split in two.

"In this match it felt like there were different matches in every stretch. In the first period Lokomotiv dominated and we looked tight. In the second I liked how we played, until the opponent scored their third goal. Then we had two penalties in a row for shooting the puck over the glass. We more or less killed that penalty, but the opponent still managed to score. The scoreboard read 1-5, it's hard to come back from that gap — Lokomotiv played very smart and closed out the match well," Gordon said.

Lokomotiv coach Andrei Kvartalnov gave a calmer account of the same 90 minutes. "Lokomotiv made a decent start and took the lead. In the second period there were some moments, but we scored and it became easier for us. We saw out the third period without any nerves," Kvartalnov said.

Commentator Artem Batrak was reluctant to draw conclusions from a single fixture against a side he considers settled. "Let's see the second and third matches, because Lokomotiv are a settled side. Against them almost any team would have looked very poor, or at about 80 percent of their own potential. In terms of the play, Lokomotiv were clearly the better side in the first period. In the second it seemed Tractor were not as poor as they had been in the first. But then more goals went in against Traktor, and that was that. I think the Chelyabinsk side will play reasonably well, but Lokomotiv are very strong. We need to see how things develop. I don't see great prospects for Traktor, but what I noticed in the second period at one point was decent," Batrak said.

Tractor forward Mikhail Grigorenko pointed to a change at the top rather than to the scoreline itself. Scott Gordon replaced Benoit Groulx behind the Chelyabinsk bench over the summer, and Grigorenko was asked what has changed. "We created too few chances up front and the penalties hurt us. Yes, in many ways Groulx's and Gordon's models of play differ. Different views of the game, but the intensity of the training process is similar. The difference is specifically in how we play with the puck. There are a lot of other demands," Grigorenko said.

Tractor go into the new intensity of demands with a squad still being assembled: the club re-signed forward Nikita Soshnikov through 2026/27 only a day before the defeat, after what were described as mixed reviews from his trial. If Gordon's system does take time to bed in, as both he and Grigorenko suggest, an opening-night scoreline this one-sided may say less about Traktor's ceiling than about how far the group still has to travel under a new coach.