SKA stopped at last. October 3 round-up

Atlant made it unlucky 13 for SKA, holding on for a 4-3 victory to end the Army Men’s victorious march at the start of the season. But despite dominating much of the game Alexei Kudashov’s team was left hanging on desperately to claim an unexpected and valuable win as SKA battled back strongly from 0-4 to come close to forcing overtime. Atlant got off to the perfect start when Artyom Chernov opened the scoring after just 34 seconds, but it was in the middle session that the home team really took control. Mikhail Glukhov converted a penalty shot just before midway to make it 2-0 and Matthew Gilroy orchestrated a counter-attack for Nikita Soshnikov to make it 3-0. When Maxim Potapov stretched that lead to four seconds into the closing stanza it looked as if SKA’s proud unbeaten start to the season would be surrendered with barely a whimper – but belately the league leader stirred itself. Two goals in 30 seconds from Dmitry Yudin and Ilya Kovalchuk startled the hosts and they cal ...