Sorkin snatches OT winner. March 1 playoffs
Moscow hosted the first overtime of this year’s playoffs, and it ended in a home victory as Maxim Sorkin snapped a 3-3 tie to give CSKA the verdict over Lokomotiv.
CSKA Moscow 4 Lokomotiv Yaroslavl 3 OT (1-0, 1-2, 1-1, 1-0)
(CSKA leads the series 1-0)
CSKA youngster Maxim Sorkin grabbed the overtime winner to give the Army Men the edge at the start of this Western Conference first round series. The 21-year-old struck three minutes into the extras to secure victory over Lokomotiv after an absorbing encounter in the Russian capital.
Sorkin started the winning move in his own zone, releasing Alexander Popov down the right. The veteran forward got all the way behind the net before feeding Bogdan Kiselevich for a point shot that was deflected back into the path of Sorkin as he lurked on the slot.
This is a series rich in sub-plots: Igor Nikitin coaching against the team he led to the last two Gagarin Cup finals, Maxim Shalunov looking to reprise his impressive post-season form of 12 months ago against a CSKA side that rode his goals to the 2021 final. For the Army Men, meanwhile, there were questions about how players would bounce back from their Olympic adventures: could Lucas Wallmark maintain the goalscoring form his showed in Beijing, and would Ivan Fedotov prove as impregnable a barrier as we saw at the Games?
However, the first key contribution came from another Olympian. Mikhail Grigorenko did not have the most successful tournament in China, scoring just once in six games, but back on home ice he needed less than three minutes to open his post-season account for the year. Popov chased Denis Barantsev into the corner and emerged with the puck, which he immediately slung to Grigorenko, wide open on the doorstep. The Russian international had little difficulty beating Eddie Pasquale and CSKA had the early lead.
That forced Lokomotiv to come out and play in the first period, but the Railwaymen struggled to turn territorial advantage into clear-cut scoring chances. CSKA kept the visitor to the outside and the bulk of the shots that Fedotov had to field came from distance.
The start of the second period changed all that, though. Georgy Ivanov’s pace took him around the net and while his initial attempt on the wraparound was blocked, it fell for Artur Kayumov. He fired in a second shot, which was deflected back to Ivanov and, at the second time of asking, the Lokomotiv forward found the net.
CSKA almost emulated that goal a few minutes later, with Anton Slepyshev making the rush and Pavel Karnaukhov close to forcing home the rebound from his wraparound effort. Pasquale and Lokomotiv held firm, however, and the game remained tied until the final moments of the second period. Then came two goals in a minute. First Shalunov fired in a wicked shot from an impossible angle, getting a deflection off Fedotov’s equipment as Loko took the lead. After leading last year’s playoffs with 12 goals, the former CSKA man was off the mark in the latest edition. Then, nine seconds later, Slepyshev forced a turnover on the Loko blue line and stormed to the slot to tie the scores before the second intermission.
And the teams were deadlocked at the end of the third as well. Alexei Marchenko, another former CSKA man now playing for Lokomotiv, put the visitor up in the 52nd minute with a mighty one-timer from the left point after good work on the forecheck from Denis Alexeyev caused panic in the home defense. However, there was redemption for the Muscovites with three minutes to play when Konstantin Okulov steered a Kiselevich feed past Pasquale to take the action into overtime. The closing seconds of regulation saw Karnuakhov flash a shot just over the bar before Loko had to kill a minor penalty on Artyom Anisimov, but it finished 3-3 after 60 minutes.
