Level pegging in the East. March 7 playoffs
Neftekhimik recovered from 0-2 down to defeat Ak Bars and tie the series at 2-2 before the teams head back to Kazan on Thursday for game five. And it’s a similar story in today’s other Eastern Conference pairing, where Salavat Yulaev won 1-0 at Admiral thanks to a goal from Grigory Panin and a shut-out from Ilya Ezhov.
Captain’s goal draws Ufa level
Admiral Vladivostok 0 Salavat Yulaev Ufa 1 (0-0, 0-0, 0-1)
(Series tied at 2-2)
After four games, this series is back to where we started. The teams are locked at 2-2 and, on the balance of what we’ve seen so far, it’s far from clear who will progress to the next round.
After losing the previous game, Ufa’s head coach Viktor Kozlov made changes. Josh Ho-Sang, scratched on Sunday, was back on the top line alongside Alexander Kadeikin with Nikolai Kulemin moving to the second troika. Goalie Ilya Ezhov continued, having played in every game of this year’s playoffs, and he rewarded Kozlov’s faith with a game-winning display between the piping.
For Admiral, too, there were changes as Leonids Tambijevs freshened up his team. The most striking novelty was the move to put defenseman Dinar Khamidullin onto the second line wing alongside Anton Berlyov and Nikolai Chebykin. Another forward, Nikolajs Jelisejevs, missed out today.
In the first period, Salavat Yulaev made it clear that it was here to level the series. The visitor outshot Admiral 14-4, while the home defense was also called upon to block further attempts on Nikita Serebryakov’s net. At the other end, the Sailors’ offense was only really visible on a couple of power plays and Ezhov had little to do.
The middle frame saw the home team pick up the pace and start to ask questions of Ufa’s goalie. Again, though, nobody could force the breakthrough and as time went by both teams adopted a more cautious approach to the game.
That led to an increasingly tense final frame. Thoughts were already beginning to turn to the prospect of overtime when Salavat Yulaev captain Grigory Panin had his say. A long-range wrister in the 55th minute was too good for Serebryakov and finally broke the deadlock. The home team played the closing stages with six skaters and pressured Ezhov’s net, but Berlyov squandered the best chance to tie it up when he couldn’t find the open corner of the net. The visitor held on, and the series returns to Ufa all square.
Ak Bars blows 2-0 lead, Neftekhimik ties the series
Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk 4 Ak Bars Kazan 2 (0-0, 2-2, 2-0)
(Series tied at 2-2)
Neftekhimik rallied from 0-2 to draw level in this Tatarstan series. A late goal from Evgeny Mityakin sank the Eastern Conference top seed in Nizhnekamsk, sending the action back to Kazan with the teams locked at 2-2 after four games.
The home team had to dig deep to get this win, though. Ak Bars had the better of the first period but was unable to turn its in-play advantage into goals. That all changed at the start of the second, with two goals in 38 seconds putting the visitor in charge of proceedings. The opener came on 21:12 when Vadim Shipachyov’s shot was pushed into the path of Kirill Petrov, who lifted the rebound into the roof of the net. Then the next attack from the visitor saw Stanislav Galiyev redirect a powerful point shot from Kirill Adamchuk.
After that, though, Neftekhimik rallied impressively. By the first commercial pause, the home team had moved ahead in the second period shot count and pulled one goal back. Sergei Kuptsov’s counterattack saw him surge down the left-hand channel before picking out a lovely no-look feed for Raul Yakupov to rifle home a one-timer. That was a big moment for the 18-year-old, who played just twice in the KHL during the regular season and claimed his first goal at this level today. However, he is a proven sniper at junior level, where he has 61 points from 49 games with Reaktor. If the name sounds familiar, you may be thinking of his cousin, Nail Yakupov, another Neftekhimik graduate currently playing for Avangard.
Semyon Kizimov, another one of Neftekhimik’s rising stars after finding a role for himself here following his move from Avtomobilist, tied the scores in the 33rd minute. That got the arena rocking. Most of the sell-out crowd believed that their heroes were on the way to a memorable and significant victory. However, that enthusiasm may have gone a little too far: within a minute of Kizimov’s equalizer, Kuptsov got a major penalty after a hard challenge on Artyom Galimov.
Ak Bars could not take advantage of that five-minute power play, but did at least slow Neftekhimik’s resurgence. The second period finished with the teams level and Neftekhimik, arguably, in the ascendancy.
That did not stop the visitor from beginning the third period at a furious tempo, eager to regain the lead it had let slip prior to the intermission. Dmitry Voronkov and Kirill Panyukov both had decent looks early in the session, but gradually Neftekhimik grew into the game. There were some determined hits on both sides but clear chances were hard to come by in the first half of the session.
Then, however, Ak Bars ran into penalty trouble. The visitor killed Nikita Dynyak’s high-sticking minor, but was undone when Voronkov went to the box shortly afterwards. Neftekhimik won the face-off and immediately took the lead: Vyacheslav Leshchenko brought the puck out from behind the net and set up Mityakin for his first ever KHL playoff goal. The 25-year-old enjoyed something of a breakout year, but this was his most important contribution to date.
The job was not done. Yegor Popov tripped Petrov and Ak Bars had a two-minute power play. However, Neftekhimik defended stoutly to preserve its lead and, once back to full strength, managed to apply sufficient pressure to ensure that Timur Bilyalov could not leave the Kazan net. Then Leshchenko added a fourth goal in the last moments, putting the game beyond Ak Bars’ reach.
