ROAD TEST Shanghai Dragons Open 2026-27 With a Three-City, Five-Day Gauntlet

Nizhnekamsk. Yaroslavl. Minsk. Three games in five days. No easing into the new season.

The Shanghai Dragons will find out quickly just how much of their new identity is ready for regular-season hockey.

A rebuilt roster, a full training camp under Mitch Love and a new leadership group led by captain Dmitrij Jaskin all point toward a fresh start. But the schedule offers little runway. Shanghai opens the 2026-27 KHL season with three road games in five days, beginning against Neftekhimik on Sept. 6 before visits to back-to-back Gagarin Cup champion Lokomotiv on Sept. 8 and Dinamo Minsk on Sept. 10.

That is three very different tests: Neftekhimik’s speed and attacking ambition, Lokomotiv’s championship structure and Dinamo’s skill-heavy lineup under a new North American-influenced coaching staff.

For the Dragons, it is an opportunity to establish something immediately.

Not necessarily perfection. Identity.

THE ROAD TRIP

U.S. times are EDT/PDT.

THE BIG PICTURE

A new team now has to become a real team

There is a significant difference between this Shanghai team and the one that entered last season.

Time.

Love inherited the Dragons during the 2025-26 campaign. This summer, he finally had the opportunity to build from the beginning. Shanghai spent essentially a full month together, much of it on the road, combining two-a-day practices, video work and seven preseason games. For a roster that was almost completely reconstructed, that mattered.

The stated objective has been clear: become harder to play against.

Love has repeatedly emphasized puck battles, physical engagement, getting to difficult areas of the ice and playing a style that can survive when games become uncomfortable. Management, meanwhile, has framed the rebuild as something deeper than changing names on the lineup card — the goal is to change the competitive mentality of the group and build a team capable of staying relevant against the KHL’s best clubs throughout the season.

Jaskin, one of the league’s most established power forwards, was named captain on the eve of the season, with Mikhail Naumenkov, Martin Frk, Nic Petan and Sergei Boikov serving as alternates. Jaskin arrives after a 42-point season with Ak Bars, including 25 goals, and gives Shanghai exactly the kind of interior presence Love wants his team to establish.

But preseason showed both sides of the new Dragons.

Shanghai demonstrated that it can take over a game: the Dragons erased a 3-0 deficit against Torpedo and scored seven unanswered goalsin a 7-3 win at the Moscow Mayor’s Cup. Calen Addison immediately showed the offensive dimension he can bring from the blue line, while Shanghai generated offense throughout the lineup.

There were warning signs, too.

A 6-0 loss to Avtomobilist showed what can happen when Shanghai loses races, puck battles and control of the game’s tempo. The Dragons were also shut out by Ak Bars in their preseason finale, another opponent capable of applying sustained pressure and making clean exits difficult.

That contrast defines the question entering Week 1:

Can Shanghai turn its best stretches into something repeatable?

THREE THINGS THAT WILL DEFINE THE TRIP

1. The breakout has to travel

Shanghai’s biggest problems in preseason generally appeared when opponents pushed the pace, pressured the first pass and forced the Dragons to spend additional time in their own zone.

That makes the opening trip an immediate systems examination. Neftekhimik specifically rebuilt with more speed in mind. Lokomotiv has made pressure and puck recovery part of its championship DNA. Minsk wants to play quickly from defense to offense.

Clean first passes will matter. So will support underneath the puck.

2. Shanghai cannot give away momentum with penalties

The Dragons already received a preview of that danger against Dinamo Minsk.

In Shanghai’s first preseason game, a 7-5 loss in Minsk, discipline helped turn the game: Dinamo converted twice on the power play in the first period. Shanghai’s own power play later responded — Jaskin scored twice with the man advantage — but chasing games through special teams is a difficult formula to sustain.

3. Depth will be tested immediately

Three games in five days means recovery becomes part of the matchup.

Shanghai plays Sunday, travels, plays Tuesday, travels again and plays Thursday. Lokomotiv opens its season on Sept. 5, giving the defending champion more recovery time before Tuesday’s meeting. Dinamo Minsk opens Sept. 7 and likewise gets two full days between games before facing the Dragons.

For a club whose management acknowledged limited rotation and a relatively short bench during preseason, that makes line management — and contributions beyond the top six — worth watching from the first puck drop.

GAME 1

SEPT. 6 — AT NEFTEKHIMIK

5:00 p.m. local | 10:00 a.m. ET | 7:00 a.m. PT

Neftekhim Arena — Nizhnekamsk

THE STORYLINE: START FAST OR GET CHASED

There will be no tape from the regular season to study here.

Sunday is the opener for both teams, and Neftekhimik enters it with a familiar core but a deliberately upgraded concept.

Head coach Igor Grishin said this week that only around five players changed from last season, but the profile of those additions matters: Neftekhimik wanted to become faster and more creative. After reaching the playoffs and pushing Avangard harder than the eventual 1-4 series score suggested, Grishin has made it clear that simply reproducing last year’s result is not the target.

That makes this a particularly interesting opponent for Shanghai.

The Dragons have spent camp talking about winning loose pucks and playing hard hockey. Neftekhimik wants to make the rink feel fast.

Whichever team imposes that identity first should control much of the opener.

KNOW THE OPPONENT

Neftekhimik’s attack still runs through Andrei Belozyorov, who produced the best regular season of his career in 2025-26 with 48 points, including 27 goals, and set a new club record for goals in the process.

Evgeny Mityakin remains the engine through the middle. He finished second on the team with 38 regular-season points and won 56.3 percent of his faceoffs while putting together a remarkable 331-game run for Neftekhimik before an injury ended it in the playoffs.

Behind them is Filipp Dolganov, who has established himself among the KHL’s better goaltenders. He posted a .928 save percentage, 2.53 goals-against average and four shutouts last season.

Neftekhimik’s offseason did not require a demolition. It required refinement. Artur Tyanulin adds skill to a group that already knows exactly how Grishin wants to play.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

SHANGHAI — Dmitrij Jaskin
The captain’s game should translate perfectly to an opener on the road: puck protection, net-front work and a willingness to play through contact. He also scored twice on the power play against Minsk in Shanghai’s preseason opener.

SHANGHAI — Nic Petan
Petan gives the Dragons a player capable of slowing the game down when everyone else wants to speed it up. His ability to create possession through the middle and find Jaskin around the net could be especially important against Neftekhimik.

SHANGHAI — Amir Miftakhov
If he gets the start, this would be an intriguing early measuring point for a goaltender Shanghai believes can develop into a No. 1 option.

NEFTEKHIMIK — Andrei Belozyorov
The most obvious shooting threat on the other side — and now one of the faces of the team.

NEFTEKHIMIK — Evgeny Mityakin
Watch the faceoff circle. Possession matters even more in an opener where neither team is completely in rhythm.

NEFTEKHIMIK — Filipp Dolganov
If Shanghai creates the better territorial game but cannot turn it into goals, Dolganov is capable of stealing the night.

KEY MATCHUP

Shanghai’s exits vs. Neftekhimik’s speed.

If the Dragons consistently move the puck out with control, they can force Neftekhimik to defend rather than attack. If Shanghai’s defense gets trapped into second and third retrievals, the game could tilt quickly.

FAMILIAR FACE?

Neftekhimik’s roster features several players with ties to Kunlun Red Star.

Nikita Khlystov appeared in 50 games for Kunlun across the 2017-18 and 2021-22 seasons — and produced one of the more unusual footnotes in club history. There were 1,339 days between two of his appearances for the team.

Ivan Nikolishin served as Kunlun’s second-line center during the 2020-21 season, a campaign that helped him reset his career and re-establish himself as a significant KHL contributor.

German Tochilkin joined Kunlun on loan from Spartak during the 2022-23 season, and it was during his time with the club that he began to make a serious case for what would come next. Tochilkin scored the first KHL goals of his career in a Kunlun uniform and used that season as an important step toward his future success.

Shanghai Dragons Media Relations