Eastern playoff race is tighter than ever. January 21 round-up
It’s tight in the Eastern Conference. How tight? Well, today we saw two teams jump from the foot of the table into the top eight in successive games. First, Amur’s 1-0 victory at Admiral took the Tiger from 11th to eighth. That result pushed Barys into the basement, but the Kazakhs responded immediately with a success at Avtomobilist and gained eighth place for themselves. In the West, meanwhile, SKA thumped Torpedo and Dynamo battled back to win a Moscow derby in a shoot-out.
Tigers briefly enter top eight
Admiral Vladivostok 0 Amur Khabarovsk 1 (0-0, 0-1, 0-0)
Amur’s goalie Evgeny Alikin was the key man here. He backstopped the Tigers to victory for the 65th time, beating Juha Metsola’s club record. Fittingly, Alikin marked his big day with a shut-out in yet another hard-fought Far East derby. The 28-year-old, who has 199 games in eight seasons in Khabarovsk, stopped 40 shots to preserve the win.
Three days earlier, Amur won 3-1 at home. Leonids Tambijevs made a couple of changes to his Admiral line-up for this meeting, with Rudolf Cerveny moving to the first line while Evgeny Grachyov went to the third. Amur, meanwhile, welcomed back Jan Drozg back to the team after a week away.
The first period was goalless, but Admiral was dominant. Alikin had to stop 17 shots as Amur had to absorb some significant pressure. It wasn’t until the midway point in the game that we saw the opening – and indeed, only – goal. Vladislav Barulin won possession in his own zone and released Drozg. The Slovenian forward saw his shot saved by Nikita Serebryakov, but Barulin was following up to open the scoring. It took some time to confirm the goal. First, the officials wanted to check for kicking, then Admiral head coach Tambijevs challenged the play, claiming interference on his goalie. However, the officials were happy that the goal was good and the Sailors took a delay of game penalty.
That penalty had no further consequence for Admiral, but the home team also failed to convert its power play chance in the third period. In the closing stages, the Sailors piled the pressure onto Alikin’s net but could not find a goal to save the game. Admiral slipped to a fourth straight loss, while Amur jumped, albeit briefly, into the top eight.
Fast start helps Barys climb the standings
Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg 3 Barys Astana 5 (1-2, 1-3, 1-0)
Game two of Saturday’s card saw another team leap from last place to eighth in the Eastern Conference. This time, it was Barys climbing the table while Avtomobilist missed its chance to reclaim top spot.
In contrast with the opening game of the day, this was a high-scoring affair. Barys got off to a flying start, scoring twice in the first three minutes. Anton Sagadeyev got both. His first, stuffing home a rebound following Ivan Mishchenko’s shot, was subject to a bench challenge from the home team. That gave Barys a power play and Sagadeyev converted that opportunity to double the lead. Late in the frame, Avtomobilist got its first PP of the day and Sergei Shirokov converted that chance with a well-made play.
The Motormen had another power play chance at the start of the second period, but Yegor Petukhov stole the puck and raced down the ice to extend the Barys lead. When Dmitry Shevchenko added a fourth in the 27th minute, Johan Mattsson left the game with Igor Bobkov coming into the game to replace the home goalie.
Bobkov saw Oleg Li reduce the deficit in the 35th minute, but was beaten for the first and only time late in the middle frame when Jeremy Bracco’s power play marker gave Barys a three-goal cushion to take into the final frame.
That advantage proved sufficient for the Kazakhs to claim the verdict. Stephane Da Costa hinted at a home fightback when he scored early in the third, and there might have been a tense finish. Jesse Blacker, once of Barys, had the puck in the net in the 54th minute, but a bench challenge saw that one called back for offside. Avtomobilist could not get any closer and the visitor managed to climb to eighth spot, displacing Amur after just a couple of hours.
Jaskin leads the league in goals
Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod 2 SKA St. Petersburg 6 (0-4, 0-0, 2-2)
A powerful first-period performance from SKA set up a convincing victory at Torpedo. The visitor is well on the way to clinching the Continental Cup as the regular season table-topper, but the home team promised to provide a stern challenge. Torpedo is in a three-way fight to secure a top-four place in the West and its potent offense can hurt any opponent.
However, there was little evidence of the home forwards in the first period of this game. SKA made a flying start and rattled up four unanswered goals in the opening frame. The visitor had the better of the play and combined that with some ruthless finishing to take the result out of Torpedo’s reach inside 20 minutes.
Dmitrij Jaskin got things started. The Czech international struck in the seventh minute, collecting his 31st goal of the season. Jaskin is SKA’s leading goalscorer and today’s effort moves him ahead of Brooks Macek to lead the league in goals.
Next, Andrei Altybarmakyan doubled the lead in the 16th minute, scoring his first goal for SKA. The 24-year-old played 14 times for the Petersburg club in 2017-2018 without registering a point, and today was his fifth appearance since his return from Sochi earlier in the season. That marker opened the floodgates, and in the closing moments of the first period, Mikhail Vorobyov and Nikita Gusev took the game away. The latter scored from a penalty shot 33 seconds before the break.
Adam Huska replaced Ivan Kulbakov in the Torpedo net and he kept SKA at bay in a goalless second period. Then, at the start of the third, the home team threatened an unlikely fightback. Vladislav Firstov got his team on the scoreboard, then a short-handed tally from Maxim Fedotov made it 2-4. A penalty on Alexander Nikishin soon after gave the host a great chance to make it a one-goal game, but SKA’s PK did its job. Home hopes were ended by Emil Galimov’s goal, making it 5-2 in the 52nd minute and there was still time for Nikita Kamalov to put a sixth into an empty net.
Moscow is Blue-and-White after later rally in derby
Dynamo Moscow 2 CSKA Moscow 1 SO (0-1, 0-0, 1-0, 0-0, 1-0)
CSKA got in front in the ninth minute thanks to Nikita Nesterov. The experienced defenseman converted his team’s first power play of the game with a well-placed wrister from the blue line. Moments later, CSKA had another PP after Jordan Weal found himself on the wrong end of an unusual call for violating face-off procedures. However, that penalty did not produce a further goal and it remained 1-0 until the first intermission.
In the second stanza, visiting goalie Alexander Sharychenkov frustrated his former club with some big saves. Dynamo had two spells on the power play but could not convert them into a tying goal. Indeed, the host had to wait until late in the third period before saving itself from defeat. The teams were playing four-on-four hockey when Ilya Kablukov got the vital marker, converting at the back door after Andrei Mironov’s feed from out on the right wing.
Overtime changed nothing, even though CSKA employed its now tradition empty net gamble. In the shoot-out, Weal prevailed for Dynamo as he scored two of his three attempts.
