Shenzhen KRS Vanke Rays

The Kunlun Red Star women's ice hockey team was established on 5 June 2017, in an effort to improve the China women's national ice hockey team in preparation for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics,[2] in association the Kunlun Red Star men's team that had joined the Kontinental Hockey League the previous year. The team signed two players prior to the official announcement of the team in Finnish goaltender Noora Räty and American forward Kelli Stack.[3] Red Star announced Digit Murphy, formerly of the Boston Blades as head coach.[4] The team also signed Rob Morgan from Yale as associate head coach[5] but soon after became the head coach of the second Chinese team, the Vanke Rays.

With their first round pick in the 2017 CWHL Draft, the Red Star selected Noora Räty.[6] The club proceeded to select Alexandra Carpenter in the second round,[7] while the third round saw the franchise select National Women's Hockey League (NWHL) All-Star Shiann Darkangelo.

On 21 October 2017, the Red Star competed in their first game, facing the Markham Thunder. Kelli Stack and Baiwei Yu both earned assists on the first goal in Kunlun Red Star history, scored by Zoe Hickel.[8] During the regular season, teams that traveled to China played a three-game series against the Red Star in an effort to reduce travel costs.

By season's end, Noora Räty was the CWHL's regular season goaltending champion, leading the league in goals against average. In addition, she tied for the league in shutouts with goaltender Emerance Maschmeyer of Les Canadiennes, with six. Räty also won the CWHL Goaltender of the Year award, the first European-born goaltender to capture the honor, and Kelli Stack led the CWHL in scoring, the first American-born player to win the Angela James Bowl.

Räty was also the starting goaltender for the Red Star in the 2018 Clarkson Cup finals in Toronto. Facing the Markham Thunder, the final went into overtime, where Laura Stacey scored with 2:11 left in the 4-on-4 overtime as Markham prevailed by a 2–1 score for its first Clarkson Cup win.[9] Räty recorded 37 saves in the game while Stack scored the only goal of the game for the Red Star.[10] Head coach Digit Murphy left the team in May and Kunlun Red Star named Bob Deraney, formerly the head coach of the Providence Friars women's ice hockey team, as the new head coach on 12 June 2018.[11]

Prior to the 2018–19 season, the CWHL shut down the other Chinese team, the Vanke Rays. On 3 August 2018, Kunlun Red Star changed its name to Shenzhen KRS Vanke Rays. Rob Morgan, who served as the head coach of the Vanke Rays during its only season was named as the general manager for the consolidated club. Kunlun Red Star brand was continued to be used by a separate hockey team for the Chinese national players as part of the national team's development in preparation for the 2022 Winter Olympics.[12]

In February 2019, the KRS Vanke Rays announced coach Deraney had stepped down and Mike LaZazzera would take over the rest of the season.[13] The team missed qualifying for the final playoff spot via tiebreaker with the Toronto Furies.

Following the season, the CWHL ceased operations citing the financial infeasibility of the league, but that the Chinese partnership had kept the league operating during the previous seasons.[14]

On 25 July 2019, the team announced they were joining the Zhenskaya Hockey League (ZhHL) for the 2019–20 season.[15] The team hired former North Dakota head coach Brian Idalski, the team's fourth head coach, while retaining veteran players Carpenter, Räty and Rachel Llanes.[16] In their first season in the ZhHL, the Vanke Rays finished second overall in the regular-season table behind HC Agidel Ufa. In the playoff round, the Vanke Rays swept their playoff games against HC Tornado and Agidel to win the ZhHL Cup, becoming the first non-Russian team to win the ZhHL championship. In addition, Carpenter was named the league's scoring champion of 2020.

In response to heightened entry restrictions in Russia amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the team temporarily relocated to Stupino, a Russian town in Moscow Oblast, for the 2020–21 season. While in Stupino, the team's temporary home arena was the Ice Palace V. M. Bobrova (Russian: Ледовый дворец спорта им. В.М. Боброва, romanized: Ledovyy Dvorets Sporta Im. V.m. Bobrova), which they shared with Kapitan Stupino of the Junior Hockey League (MHL).

They remained in Moscow Oblast for the 2021–22 ZhHL season, relocating to Mytishchi Arena in Mytishchi.[1]

The contracts of all players without Chinese citizenship were terminated on 20 September 2021, two days before the team submitted this roster with their application for the 2021–22 ZhHL regular season.[17] Each player on the roster was eligible to represent China at the 2022 Winter Olympics.[18][19]

During the Olympic break, it was announced that seventeen players would not return following the Olympics and fourteen players had been signed in their stead. The players who left the team were Kassy Betinol, Tia Chan, Emily Costales, Taylor Lum, Kaitlin Tse, and Camryn Wong of Canada, Anna Fairman and Maddie Woo of the United States, and Dai Yushun, Fu Kexin, Guan Yingying, He Xin, Li Qianhua, Liu Yufei, Lu Shuang, and Zhang Mengying of China. The incoming players were Canadians Michela Cava, Ryleigh Houston, Hannah Miller, and Abby Theissen, Russians Polina Lipilina (née Yeliseyeva) and Maria Pushkar, Finns Michelle Karvinen, Anna Kilponen, Noora Räty, Susanna Tapani, and Minttu Tuominen, Swedish forward Emma Nordin, American forward Rebekah Kolstad, and Chinese forward Yang Liying.[20]

In mid-March, it was announced that Canadian goaltender Kimberly Newell, American forward Rebekah Kolstad, and Chinese skaters He Siye, Wen Lu, Pi Yunlin, Kong Minghui, and Yang Liying had left the team. Both Kolstad and Yang had signed contracts in January but did not play any games in the 2021–22 ZhHL season.[21]

As of 18 April 2022[22]

Note: Player names are displayed using western name order (given name, then family name) to maintain the sorting function of the table.

No.	Nat	Player	Pos	S/G	Age	Acquired	Birthplace
86		Michela Cava	F	R	28	2022	Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada
23		Xin Fang	F	L	27	2021	Harbin, Heilongjiang, China
59		Yekaterina Fedorkova	F	L	17	2022	Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia
28		Ryleigh Houston	F	R	23	2022	Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
3		Michelle Karvinen	F	L	32	2022	Rødovre, Hovedstaden, Denmark
4		Anna Kilponen	D	L	26	2022	Orivesi, Pirkanmaa, Finland
20		Ksenia Kuimova	D	L	16	2022
83		Polina Lipilina	F	L	24	2022	Tver, Russia
93		Zhixin Liu	D	L	29	2021	Qiqihar, Heilongjiang, China
43		Mariya Mikaelyan	F	L	15	2022	Moscow, Russia
34		Hannah Miller	F	L	26	2022	North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
9		Alena Mills	F	L	31	2022	Kutná Hora, Středočeský kraj, Czechoslovakia
14		Maria Nikolayeva	F	L	16	2022	Saint Petersburg, Russia
29		Emma Nordin	F	L	31	2022	Örnsköldsvik, Ångermanland, Sweden
68		Maria Pushkar	F	L	21	2022	Kazan, Tatarstan, Russia
57		Alexandra Pyrkova	D	R	16	2022	Moscow, Russia
41		Noora Räty	G	L	32	2022	Espoo, Uusimaa, Finland
1		Anastasia Ropotova	G	L	15	2022
77		Susanna Tapani	F	L	30	2022	Laitila, Varsinais-Suomi, Finland
15		Minttu Tuominen	D	R	31	2022	Helsinki, Uusimaa, Finland
24		Yuqing Wang	G	L	27	2021	Harbin, Heilongjiang, China
2		Baiwei Yu (C)	D	R	33	2021	Harbin, Heilongjiang, China
87		Qinan Zhao	D	L	24	2021	Harbin, Heilongjiang, China
98		Rui Zhu	F	L	24	2021	Harbin, Heilongjiang, China

Coaching staff and team personnel

• Head coach: Brian Idalski
• Assistant coach: Stacey Colarossi
• Assistant coach: Max Markowitz
• Assistant coach: Sun Rui (Sunny Sun)

• General Manager: Nikolai Feoktistov
• President: Ao Meng

• Qi Xueting, 2019–20
• Alex Carpenter, 2020–21
• Yu Baiwei, 2021–

• Digit Murphy, 2017–18
• Bob Deraney, June 2018–February 2019
• Mike LaZazzera, February 2019–March 2019
• Brian Idalski, 2019–