Oscar’s winner for Ak Bars. Eastern quarter-finals, Day 1

(1) Ak Bars Kazan 3 (OT)  (8) Avtomobilist Yekaterinurg 2  Ak Bars leads the series 1-0 Ak Bars made a winning start to its play-off series against Avtomobilist – but the Eastern Conference leader was pushed all the way by the outsider. It took overtime to separate the teams, with Oscar Moller finally snapping a 2-2 tie in the 6nd minute. He got the decider on the power play to stop the clock at 61:26, much to the relief of the host. Earlier Avtomobilist had startled the home crowd by taking an early lead thinks to a power play goal from Tobias Viklund in the eighth minute. Home nerves were calmed within seconds, however, when the video official gave the thumbs up to an equalizer from Alexander Svitov. By the first intermission Ak Bars was up 2-1 thanks to Igor Mirnov on the power play, but that wasn’t the end of Avto. The Yekaterinburg team tied it up early in the second through its rising star Anatoly Golyshev, and thoroughly deserved to take t ...