Amur keeps up its summer streak
Sunday brought one more warm-up game, with Vityaz facing Amur for the second time in three days. The visitor edged the verdict to continue its impressive pre-season form.
Late leveller denies Vityaz a first win of the summer
Vityaz Moscow Region 2 Amur Khabarovsk 3 SO (0-0, 2-1, 0-1, 0-0, 0-1)
Amur made it five wins from six this summer after following up Friday’s 2-1 success against Vityaz with a shoot-out win over the same opponent. But the Tigers left it late, relying on a last-minute goal from Denis Golubev to deny Vityaz a first victory of pre-season.
In keeping with this summer’s overall theme, neither of these teams is looking to travel very much for different camps. Going abroad is impossible due to the coronavirus situation, and even within Russia teams are preferring to stay in one region and arrange several match-ups against the same opposition. It’s an entirely sensible response to the current situation: cut down on unnecessary travel and avoid close encounters with more people than strictly needed. Thus, a couple of days after Amur won 2-1 in a warm-up game against Vityaz, the teams met again in Podolsk.
This time, the home team gave debuts to three of its new imports. American forward Justin Danforth lined up for the first time since his league-leading season with Lukko in Finland. Two Swedes, forward Mattias Tedenby and defenseman Linus Hultstrom, also appeared for the first time.
After a goalless first period, the action got going in the second as the teams traded three goals inside five minutes. Danila Moiseyev put Vityaz ahead 77 seconds after the restart, and it wasn’t long before Svyatoslav Grebenshchikov doubled the lead. Kaspars Daugavins claimed an assist on that second goal, scoring his first point since joining Vityaz from Spartak. However, on 24:02, Alexander Kuznetsov pulled a goal back for Amur, with Igor Velichkin’s helper extending his productive run to three pre-season games.
It stayed at 2-1 until the last minute, when Amur pulled goalie Evgeny Alikin and grabbed a tying goal thanks to Golubev. The 29-year-old collected his sixth point in five games to take the action into overtime. The extras could not provide a winner, but Nikita Feoktistov scored in the shoot-out to give Amur its fifth win in six games. The Tigers now go on to the Romazan Memorial Tournament in Magnitogorsk next week.
