Duszak wins games for Minsk, Cajkovsky returns to goal. Week 10 top imports
New and old imports help their teams to win games and climb up in the standings, with Cajkovsky netting his first goals of the season, Duszak scoring in OT for Minsk, and Nikolaj Jelisejevs potting his first hat-trick. KHL.ru presents the best players from each country.
USA
D, Dinamo Minsk, 3 G, 4 (2+2) points, +1
The American defenseman had an excellent week last time around, helping the Belarusian franchise winning two games of three. After being left out from the scoresheet in Dinamo Minsk’s losing effort against Lokomotiv (0:1) on Monday, Duszak scored points in both the next games, which the Minsk side won. First, he netted his second of the season when Dinamo had the best over Kunlun Red Star on Wednesday, then he had one of his best games so far on Sunday, when he scored in OT to give Minsk a hard-fought victory over HC Sochi – again in the game’s dying seconds. He also had a helper that night. For his efforts, Duszak was awarded defenseman of the week honors.
Slovakia
D, Sibir, 3 G, 2 (2+0) points, +3
The Slovakian large-framed defenseman is having another excellent KHL season, eating a lot of minutes on the blueline for Sibir and contributing with points to his team’s tremendous start. Last week, Cajkovsky scored twice in a row – his first tallies of this year’s campaign – against Avangard and Avtomobilist, when Sibir got points in both road matches with an OT loss to the Hawks and a SO win over the Motormen. Cajkovsky, who will soon line up for his 300th KHL game, is averaging almost twenty minutes a night and trails only Ilya Morozov among Sibir defensemen with 47 blocked shots. He’s also second in scoring from the blueline and average time on ice, following Trevor Murphy in both cases.
Canada/Germany
F, Avtomobilist, 2 G, 2 (2+0) points, +2
The Motormen’s scoring leader had another productive week last time around, scoring in both games and reaching a four-match goalscoring streak and netting seven goals in his latest ten appearances. Avtomobilist isn’t in their best shape of late, having slipped down to third place in the Eastern Conference’s standings, yet Macek has been very productive and consistent in his scoring, with tallies against both Amur and Sibir. The Motormen gained points in both games, with a 4:2 win over the Tigers and a 1:2 SO loss to Novosibirsk. Avtomobilist is currently in third place, and its coach Nikolai Zavarukhin needs Macek to keep on scoring at this pace.
Latvia
F, Admiral, 3 G, 4 (3+1) points, +2
The Sailors are in fantastic shape, and Jelisejevs is helping the franchise reaching new heights – the Latvian forward netted a hat-trick – his first in the KHL – when Admiral defeated Barys in Kazakhstan with a 4:1 score, establishing a club record for the fastest three-goal effort in history. But as much as Admiral’s wins didn’t limit to the game in Astana, also Jelisejevs’ contribute didn’t limit to his hat-trick – he also had a helper when the Sailors defeated Dynamo Moscow on Sunday, getting his third assist this season. Admiral is currently sailing in fifth position in the East – it’ll be interesting to see whether they’ll manage to keep this pace.
Sweden
G, Avtomobilist, 2 G, 1 W, 95.71%, 1.44 GAA
The Motormen have at their disposal three capable goalies, and Nikolai Zavarukhin is doing his best in giving each some icetime – last week Mattsson had two games, and he got full advantage of his chance. He first stopped 26 shots out of 28 when Avtomobilist defeated Amur on Thursday, then, two days later, he had a fantastic 41-save performance, but it wasn’t enough as Sibir got the best of the Motormen 1:2 after SO. The Swedish netminder’s role is expected to grow further as the season goes on.
