It is owned by Russia's largest oil company, Rosneft, which is in turn majority-owned by the Russian government.

By the late 1980s, however, the long run of Red Army dominance caused a significant dropoff in attendance throughout the league.

Krutov had the shortest NHL career, lasting only one season in Vancouver; Makarov (who won the Calder Memorial Trophy in 1990) and Kasatonov were out of the NHL by 1997; Fetisov and Larionov won the Stanley Cup twice together with Detroit before Fetisov retired in 1998; Larionov would win a third Cup with Detroit in 2002, before retiring from New Jersey in 2004.

His players practiced for as many as 11 months a year, and were confined to training camp (an Army barracks) most of that time even if they were married.

CSKA played 36 games against NHL teams from 1975 to 1991 and finished with a record of 26 wins, 8 losses, and 2 ties.

The game was notable for an incident where, after a body check delivered by Philadelphia's Ed Van Impe, the CSKA's top player, Valeri Kharlamov (like Tretiak eventually a Hall of Famer), was left prone on the ice for a minute.

CSKA coach Konstantin Loktev pulled his team off the ice in protest that no penalty was called.

They were told by NHL president Clarence Campbell to return to the ice and finish the game, which was being broadcast to an international audience, or the Soviet Hockey Federation would not get paid the fee that they were entitled to.

In the mid-1990s, Sergei Fedorov, Vladimir Konstantinov, and Vyacheslav Kozlov had established themselves as key members of the Detroit Red Wings when they were joined by Fetisov and Larionov, forming the Russian Five.

After a conflict with Tikhonov, CSKA major stars including Fetisov, Larionov, Krutov and Makarov left the team to make their careers in the NHL.

Although CSKA has remained one of the strongest teams in Russia since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it did not win a title in the KHL or its predecessors until 2015, when the club finished first in the regular season and became Russian champion for the first time in a long time, but failed to win the Gagarin Cup.

In the 2015–16 season, the team advanced all the way to the Gagarin Cup final; however, they lost that series to Metallurg Magnitogorsk in seven games.

[citation needed] In the 2018–19 season, CSKA won its first Gagarin Cup, after beating Avangard Omsk in four games.

[citation needed] After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Swedes Joakim Nordstrom and Lucas Wallmark elected to leave the team.