KHL’s Kunlun Red Star rebrands as Shanghai Dragons for 2025-26
The only Chinese team in the KHL has undergone a massive rebrand ahead of the 2025-26 season.
On Thursday, the team formerly known as Kunlun Red Star announced it has rebranded as the Shanghai Dragons, replacing Beijing as its primary city. The shift sees a new city name and logo for the upcoming season.
The dragon, a traditional figure in Chinese cosmology, represents strength, wisdom, and good fortune, the team says, adding that the new identity is “rooted deeply in cultural authenticity while embracing a global stage.”
However, the team won’t be playing in Shanghai for the 2025-26 season, and has not played regular-season games in China since before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Instead, the upcoming season will see the Dragons play their home games at SKA Arena, the world’s largest rink with a capacity of 22,500.
Meanwhile, SKA St. Petersburg will continue playing at the 12,300-seat Ice Palace, also in the city.
First introduced to the KHL in 2016, Kunlun Red Star played 557 games in four different cities across nine seasons, and operated as the main club team for players named to Team China for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games.
🐲 New Era. New Us pic.twitter.com/kZXueiEigq
— Shanghai Dragons (@KRSchina) August 7, 2025While known as Kunlun Red Star, the team saw several former NHLers don the jersey, including forwards Devante Smith-Pelly and Griffin Reinhart, as well as Wojtek Wolski, who helped Team Canada to a bronze medal at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympics.
In 2024-25, the team finished ninth of 11 teams in the Western Conference, missing the playoffs by nine points behind eighth-place Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod, but will look to return to the Gagarin Cup Playoffs in the upcoming season.
Led by longtime NHL head coach Gerard Gallant, the Dragons open the regular season with a three-game homestand, starting on Sept. 6 against SKA St. Petersburg, before taking on Admiral Vladivostok on Sept. 8 and Lokomotiv Yaroslavl on Sept. 12.