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Avangard celebrates Omsk return, Kunlun stuns CSKA again. October 1
The big game of the day was in Omsk, where Avangard played in its home city for the first time since 2018. The Hawks edged a 2-1 verdict against Sibir to complete the festivities. Kunlun Red Star followed up its recent OT win over defending champion CSKA with a shoot-out success engineered by on-loan forward Alexander Perevalov. Ak Bars also had a tough time, recovering from 0-2 to beat Amur in overtime. SKA eased to a 5-1 win in Minsk.
Avangard rallies for homecoming win
Avangard Omsk 2 Sibir Novosibirsk 1 (0-1, 1-0, 1-0)
It was a day four years in the making. Avangard’s last KHL game in its hometown of Omsk was back in 2018. At the end of that season, structural defects forced the closure of Omsk Arena. The Hawks flew to Balashikha, where four seasons of action brought a first Gagarin Cup to the club. Today, though, the team was back in town with a Siberian derby to raise the curtain at the purpose-built G-Drive Arena.
The homecoming, after a gruelling 12-game road trip to start the season, was a relief for Dmitry Ryabykin and his team. After a poor start, Avangard began picking up results on the road but remains some way off the pace in the East. By contrast, Sibir enjoyed a bright opening month of its campaign and its midweek win at CSKA brought 16 points from 13 games.
In the opening seconds, Avangard got a great chance to score the first goal at the new arena. However, an early power play came to nothing, with visiting goalie Anton Krasotkin untroubled by the home offense. Instead, the honor of the first goal went to Sibir defenseman Trevor Murphy, who converted his team’s first power play of the game.
There were signs of nerves among the home team in that first period. The sense of occasion caused some players to tense up and basic errors all too frequently disrupted the play. During the intermission, Ryabykin’s job was to calm his team and restore focus on the game. He achieved this, at least partially: Krasotkin was saved by the piping early in the frame. Ryabykin also made a key intervention midway through the second game when his bench challenge saw a second Sibir goal whistled down for offside.
That verdict lifted the host and, in the final seconds of the middle frame Alexei Bereglazov’s point shot tied the game. The strike came on the power play as the Hawks got it right at the fifth attempt.
The tying goal raised the noise in the brand new building and the team responded in the third period by redoubling its attacking efforts. There was one anxious moment when Sibir’s Nikita Korotkov broke clear, but Vasily Demchenko stopped the danger and then stifled Vladimir Butuzov’s attempt on the rebound.
Then came one more power play, and this one produced the winning goal. Reid Boucher’s didn’t really get his shot off, but the puck skidded across the crease and a deflection took it into the net in the 50th minute. That proved enough to take the verdict and give the new arena a winning debut, to the delight of most of the 11,767 crowd.
SKA swamps Dinamo
Dinamo Minsk 1 SKA St. Petersburg 5 (1-1, 0-3, 0-1)
Omsk had the new arena, but Minsk had the biggest attendance of the day – and indeed the season so far – for the visit of table-topping SKA. More than 15,000 fans turned out to see Petersburg hand a fourth successive loss to Craig Woodcroft’s team. Three unanswered goals in the second stanza decided the outcome of the game.
The visitor got an early lead thanks to Marat Khairullin. That was his fifth of the season, and stretched his current productive streak to three games (one goal, three assists). With 15 points overall, the summer signing from Neftekhimik leads SKA in scoring.
Despite SKA’s fast start, Dinamo was fully in this game in the first period. Pavel Varfolomeyev tied the scores in the seventh minute and parity was a fair reflection of the play in the first 20 minutes.
Everything changed in the middle frame. Nikita Kamalov and Dmitrij Jaskin struck in quick succession early in the second, chasing Konstantin Shostak from the Dinamo net and changing the complexion of the game. Now Minsk was struggling to sustain its attacking momentum and SKA was enjoying far more possession in the danger zone. Tensions spilled over into a fight between Shawn Lalonde and the visitor’s forward Alexei Ozhgikhin, one of the prospects currently emerging from SKA’s system. As those two cooled their heels for five, Alexander Volkov made it 4-1. Damir Zhafyarov stretched his productive streak to five games with an assist on that play.
After that, there was no doubt about the outcome. Dinamo had more of the play in the third period as it tried to find a way back into the game, but SKA’s defense held firm. The final word went to Maxim Groshev, whose short-handed goal on 58:01 made the final score 5-1.
Perevalov stuns CSKA
Kunlun Red Star 5 CSKA Moscow 4 SO (0-1, 1-3, 3-0, 0-0, 1-0)
Alexander Perevalov picked the perfect moment for his first two KHL goals, scoring twice in the last five minutes as Kunlun battled back to force overtime against CSKA.
The defending champion had lost here 10 days earlier but seemed to have learned from that experience. The visitor opened a 2-0 lead when Sergei Plotnikov and Vladislav Kamenev scored either side of the first intermission. Brett Pollock pulled one back – his first since joining the club in the summer – in the 29th minute, but Prokhor Poltapov immediately restored the two-goal lead. When Darren Dietz struck on the power play to make it 4-1 just before the second break, the game seemed to be as good as over.
However, nobody told the Dragons. Devin Brosseau made it 2-4 early in the third, and the home team began to believe. Then came Perevalov. The Lokomotiv prospect, loaned to Kunlun as the Chinese franchise copes with injuries to the likes of Tyler Wong, Cliff Pu and Luke Lockhart, chose the visit of CSKA to announce himself in the big league.
His first came on 55:30, pouncing on the rebound after CSKA goalie Adam Reideborn gave up a big rebound on a Ty Schultz shot. Then, on 59:01, the youngster stunned the Muscovites with a goal out of nothing. CSKA got lazy attempting to clear its lines, Parker Foo’s outstretched stick forced the turnover and Perevalov rifled home his second snipe of the game.
In the teams’ previous meeting, Zac Leslie grabbed an OT winner after just 10 seconds. This time, CSKA had time to withdraw Reideborn and play 4-on-3, a favored tactic for Sergei Fedorov in the extras. This time, though, Kunlun held firm to guide the game to a shoot-out.
And, much like regulation, that shoot-out belonged to Perevalov. The 18-year-old held his nerve to deliver the coup-de-grace, while goalie Matt Jurusik stopped everything CSKA could throw at him to record his first KHL victory.
Amur blows 2-0 lead, loses in overtime in Kazan
Ak Bars Kazan 3 Amur Khabarovsk 2 OT (0-0, 1-2, 1-0, 1-0)
Ak Bars had to fight back from 0-2 to take Amur to overtime before grabbing a hard-fought verdict over the visitor.
The visitor withstood a first period storm in Kazan, outshot 12-3 and seeing Ak Bars enjoy almost three times the attacking play. However, at the end of the opening stanza the game remained goalless - and the Tigers were ready to pounce.
At the start of the second, out of nowhere, Amur jumped to a 2-0 lead. Alexander Sharov scored a breakaway goal in the 22nd minute, then Pavel Makhanovsky’s short-handed tally doubled the lead and silenced the home crowd at the Tatneft Arena.
A reply from Alexander Radulov quickened home pulses once again, but Amur protected its lead until the start of the third. Nikita Dynyak then made it 2-2, but despite an Ak Bars onslaught, the game was destined to go to the extras.
Amur began overtime on the power play after Radulov’s foul in the final seconds. However, the visitor could not take advantage and later took a ‘too many men’ penalty. That proved crucial: Radulov set up Dmitry Kagarlitsky for a power play goal and Ak Bars snatched the victory.
