Viktor Shuvalov, a future star of Moscow clubs VVS and CSKA, led the team in scores during its first season in the championship.

[citation needed] In the early 1990s, Traktor twice finished third in the International Hockey League under head coach Valery Belousov.

A group of Traktor players, including Sergei Gomolyako, Valeri Karpov, Igor Varitsky, Ravil Gusmanov and others, appeared on Team Russia at several world championships.

Despite a good start Chelyabinsk finished the regular season with disappointing results and eventually failed to advance in the playoffs further than the first round losing the series to Atlant Moscow Oblast with an overall score 13-2.

Before the 2009–10 season the team had to face budget cuts and lose its biggest stars including Oleg Kvasha and Evgenii Dadonov.

After an unstable performance in the regular season the team advanced to the playoffs with the lowest seed ultimately losing to its natural rival Metallurg Magnitogorsk in the first round.

During the 2010 off-season Nazarov left to coach infamous Vityaz Chekhov and was replaced by Andrei Sidorenko who was fired off his job right after the disastrous start of the season.

In October 2010 Valery Belousov returned as Traktor's head coach, but, nonetheless, during the 2010–11 the team failed to make the playoffs.

After the lackluster season the team finally fixing its financial issues seriously rearranged the roster with future stars such as Vladimir Antipov, Stanislav Chistov, Jan Bulis, Petri Kontiola and goaltender Michael Garnett.

The results were immediate, Traktor became the best team of the 2011–12 regular season winning Continental Cup and taking bronze medals after losing to Avangard Omsk in Eastern Conference Finals.

Another homegrown Chelyabinsk player, Konstantin Panov, who returned to Traktor after five seasons of absence, became the team's goal scoring leader.