Today's game in Nizhny Novgorod was Igor Nikitin's 700th KHL game as a head coach. He became the fifth coach in league history to reach that mark.
Igor Valerievich started his coaching in the 2008/09 season. In the KHL, he coached the Avangard, the Lokomotiv and the CSKA. He headed the Army club from 2017 to 2021 and returned to the team in 2025. Nikitin won the Gagarin Cup twice (2019, 2025) and the Continental Cup four times (2019, 2020, 2021, and 2025). He was twice ranked the best coach of the season (2019, 2025).
