Omskie Krylia

Alexander Mirzabalaev once beat Avangard's goalkeeper in a friendly for the Blinov Memorial Cup — a small detail, but a telling one, since Avangard is the very club Omsk Wings exists to supply with players.

The team was put together in 2021 out of Avangard's own academy, built specifically to give young players a bridge into the Kontinental Hockey League rather than to chase trophies of its own. It plays out of the SKK named after Viktor Blinov, a 5,000-seat arena in Omsk, and competes in the Higher Hockey League (VHL) as Avangard's farm side, with no city rival to speak of — the club's opponent is the standard set by its parent team, not another local outfit.

For four seasons running, from 2021/22 through 2024/25, that standard proved out of reach: Omsk Wings finished among the bottom sides in the table and missed the playoffs each time. The picture changed in 2025/26, when the club reached the postseason for the first time and advanced to the quarterfinal. Along the way came smaller silverware that mattered more for what it signalled than for its prestige — the Perm Cup in 2022, the Altai Governor's Cup in 2023 — evidence that the development work was starting to show results on the ice rather than just on paper.

That work was put to the test in September 2026, when Avangard, short-handed, called up six academy products at once, Lev Starikov among them. It was the clearest sign yet of what Omsk Wings was set up to do in the first place: produce players Avangard can actually use.