2009-10 KHL season

The 2009-10 KHL season is the second season of the Kontinental Hockey League.

League changes
On 16 June 2009, the KHL Board of Directors approved several changes to the league for the 2009–10 season.

The league admitted a new team, Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg. Khimik Voskresensk did not play in the 2009–10 season due to financial problems, but they retained KHL membership and may return at a later date, meanwhile playing in the Russian Major League. Overall, the number of teams playing in 2009–10 remained at 24.
 * Team changes

Teams were geographically aligned to aid travel conditions. The league were divided into a Western and an Eastern conference, each containing two divisions of six teams. Each team played the other teams in the same division 4 times (for a total of 20 games) and each team in the other divisions 2 times (for a total of 36 games). The regular season thus consisted of 56 games for every team.
 * Division realignment

The top eight teams from each conference qualified for the play-offs. Division winners were awarded the top two seeds. In each conference quarterfinals, semifinals and finals will be played and the conference winners play for the Gagarin Cup. Conference quarterfinals were best-of-five series, the remaining rounds best-of-seven series. Overtime periods last 20 minutes or until the sudden death goal.
 * Play-off structure

The aggregate income of all players of a team was limited to 620 million rubles ($20.77 million). Minimum aggregate salary for the players was 200 million rubles ($6.7 million). Each teams was allowed one "franchise player" exception, who did not count towards the cap.
 * Salary cap

25 players are allowed to be in the major team roster and 25 in the junior team roster of every club. The number of foreign players is restricted to 5, at most one of them as goaltender.
 * Rosters

The league implemented a more advanced and organized junior hockey sub-league to focus on development. It features players from 17 to 21 years of age.
 * Junior league

On 1 June 2009, the inaugural entry draft for the KHL was held. Each team's hockey school was able to protect 25 players from the 17-21 agegroup prior to the draft.
 * Entry draft

Goal crease was shrunk to the NHL dimensions.
 * Goal crease

Conference standings
The conference standings will determine the seedings for the play-offs. The first two places in each conference are reserved for the division leaders.

1 The KHL decided that as a result of the game between Vityaz Chekhov and Avangard Omsk on 9 January 2010 being abandoned due to a mass brawl which left neither team having the required number of players to continue, the game would count as a 5-0 defeat for both teams with no points being awarded.

Divisional standings
Western Conference

Eastern Conference

Scoring leaders
GP = Games played, G = Goals, A = Assists, Pts = Points

Other leaders
Source: khl.ru

Goaltenders: minimum 20 games played

Playoffs
The eight best teams of each conference qualified for the playoffs. The first three rounds are played within the conferences, then the two winners will play in the Gagarin Cup final. The playoffs started on 10 March and are scheduled to end on 27 April.