‘Dry season’ strikes in the East. December 8 round-up

The Russian term for a shut-out literally translates as a ‘dry game’ – and by those standards Eastern Conference teams were pretty well parched on Monday. Five games from eight featured a shut-out – and all five toothless offenses came from the East. The driest spot of all came in Siberia, where the games at Sibir and Metallurg Novokuznetsk were both settled by a single goal, and both times in favor of the visitor. Traktor produced its first shut-out of the campaign to win at Sibir, thanks to 35 saves from Michael Garnett and a 44th-minute Deron Quint goal. In Novokuznetsk it also took a third-period goal to give Ugra its fourth win on the spin. In-form Nikita Gusev scored his third in four games while Stepan Goryachevskikh had 29 saves as the Khanty-Mansiysk team made it three shut-outs in four. Neftekhimik’s Alexander Sudnitsyn was the first goalie to claim a shut-out, making 30 saves in his team’s 2-0 win at Amur. Again the scoring came late, with Yegor Milovzorov breaki ...