Sibir moves into top three. January 7 round-up
Both teams came into this game on the back of two straight wins, so not surprisingly there were few changes to either roster. Dinamo’s one change was enforced, with Shawn Lalonde suspended. Sibir welcomed back captain Evgeny Chesalin, who had missed the previous five games.
Sibir Novosibirsk 3 Dinamo Minsk 2 OT (1-0, 0-1, 1-1, 1-0)
Evgeny Chesalin made his presence felt right away. His hard work on the slot prompted the first penalties of the game in the third minute and he also drew another foul from the visitor in an opening frame studded with penalties. The opening goal came from Sibir’s Yegor Alanov; it came, of course, on the power play.
Dinamo tied the game at the start of the second period through Dmitry Sokolov. However, after drawing level the visitor continued its relationship with the penalty box. Dmitry Korobov, Ilya Shinkevich and Joe Duszak followed each other into the sin bin – each for fouls on the provocative Chesalin. However, that did not help Sibir regain the lead as Minsk defended strongly.
Early in the third, Vyacheslav Osnovin made it 2-1 for the home team, but Roman Gorbunov quickly tied it up with a shorthanded tally. For the remainder of the game, the teams managed to stay out of the box and there was no further scoring in regulation. Overtime saw Ilya Morozov get the winner for Sibir, securing a result that puts his team into third place in the Eastern Conference.
