A week before the start of the action, quite unusually, Atlant combined a training event with the traditional pre-season meeting with their fans. This allowed the supporters to actually take part, and present team jerseys to the new players. Several dozen supporters gathered in the skating rink to watch the team's new signings, and to wish the team good luck ahead of the season.

The most exciting thing for fans was that they could ask the players questions during the training session, while the coaches explained the exercises to the crowd and explained what the players were doing on the ice.

All this was the idea of head coach Nikolay Borschevsky, who wanted to lift the morale of his team after they lost several exhibition matches.

“I'm really happy with the way the players devoted themselves to the new training session. We worked hard and laid a good foundation for the season. Of course, it's good when you win all your games, including the pre-season matches, but it's not a tragedy if we lose matches during preseason,” says Borschevsky.

“We have lots of new players and at least all of them have gained enough playing time and they are starting to know each other's game. The last two matches were much better and we could see the results of our work.”

Several key players left the Moscow region side during the off-season, but the newcomers are more than adequate replacements.

One of the new signings is Chris Bourque. He has an impressive set of statistics after playing in the Washington Capitals' farm club in the American Hockey League. But, most notably, Chris is the son of NHL legend and Hall of Fame member Ray Bourque.

After the Gagarin Cup finalists HC MVD were united with Dynamo, Atlant remain the only team to represent the Moscow region in the KHL.

As long as the biggest home star and captain Sergey Mozyakin is in the squad and fit to play, the home crowd can be confident that the team will fight to the best of their ability.

Providing the Russian international is in form, Atlant will be looking to perform better than they did last season, when they finished fourth in the conference.