Play-off race goes to the wire. February 20 round-up

HC Sochi wasted the chance to confirm their play-off spots on Friday evening, with Sochi’s suffering a damaging shoot-out loss to Severstal. It could have been worse for the league’s newcomer – Severstal led 4-1 at the second intermission and seemed poised to move to within a single point of its opponent. A third-period revival saw Mikhail Anisin, Andre Petterson and Max Warn haul Sochi level, but Dmitry Kagalitsky’s shoot-out winner keeps Severstal in the hunt for eighth place. Atlant is also a serious contender after moving up to ninth with a 1-0 win at home to SKA. Goalie Atte Engren was the star man as his team was outshot 31-13, but he kept SKA at bay as Igor Levitsky grabbed the game’s only goal. Atlant is now two points adrift of Sochi, but has just one game left to try to overtake its rival. Torpedo went down to a 2-1 defeat at Lokomotiv but is now assured of a play-off spot by virtue of having more regulation time wins than Severstal can achieve. Sergei Konkov and Jon ...