Torpedo progresses, defending champ goes to game seven. March 12 playoffs
Torpedo won a playoff series for the first time since 2016 after seeing off Dynamo in six games. Denis Yan scored twice in Moscow to lead his team to an overtime win. In Sunday’s other Western Conference action, Severstal won 3-0 against CSKA to take the defending champion to a game seven clash on Tuesday.
Severstal stays alive
Severstal Cherepovets 3 CSKA Moscow 0 (0-0, 2-0, 0-0)
(Series tied at 3-3)
Severstal rose to the challenge against the defending champion, grabbing a vital victory to take this series to game seven. Alexander Samonov made 26 saves to blank CSKA, while goals from Daniil Pylenkov, Alexander Petunin and Nikita Rozhkov ensured that this first-round match-up would go the full distance.
Saturday saw Admiral, seventh seed in the East, pull off a big shock with the ouster of second-ranked Salavat Yulaev. Today, in the West, Severstal maintained its hopes of matching that feat by denying CSKA its fourth win of the series. It also takes the Steelmen to its second successive game seven in the first round of the playoffs after losing out to Dynamo Moscow 12 months ago.
In the first period, CSKA created the first big chance of the game when Vitaly Abramov went around the net and fed the puck to the slot where Vladimir Bryukvin was close to forcing it home. Goalie Alexander Samonov did the splits to get his pad behind that effort. Almost immediately, play went to the other end and Severstal was even closer to opening the scoring. Ruslan Abrosimov got onto Petunin’s pass and advanced to fire a shot that clattered off the crossbar and bounced to safety.
At the start of the middle frame, CSKA looked lively. Pavel Karnaukhov’s counterattack tested Samonov as the visitor seemed ready to step up the tempo. However, it wasn’t long before Pylenkov turned the course of the game. The Severstal forward faced a battle to get the puck down the left channel, but once he reached the CSKA zone he was able to use a visiting defenseman to screen his shot and beat Adam Reideborn.
Samonov remained busy at the other end, pulling off a big save to deny Konstantin Okulov. Then he closed the door on Bryukvin when the CSKA forward found himself all alone in front of the net. However, late in the frame Nikita Nesterov took a penalty and Severstal converted the power play. Pylenkov’s stretch pass released Petunin into the danger zone and his wrist shot found the top corner.
CSKA was close to halving the deficit before the intermission but Samonov was again equal to the test, this time denying Andrei Svetlakov. That miss looked even more costly when the Steelmen got another power play at the start of the third period and Rozhkov added a third goal.
After that, the visitor had to look for any route back into the game. However, even when Sergei Fedorov’s team created chances there was no way past the impressive Samonov. Mikhail Grigorenko’s counterattack almost gave Maxim Mamin a goal, but the netminder had other ideas. Later, Sergei Plotnikov was unable to force the puck past the resolute Samonov. The visitor’s hopes were hampered further when Maxim Sorkin took a minor penalty midway through the final frame. Severstal did not offer much offense in those two minutes, but took valuable time off the clock.
As the seconds ticked down, Severstal’s pressing remained solid – to the extent that Reideborn was unable to leave the game until inside the final minute. That left far too little time for CSKA’s final push to amount to anything significant and the home team celebrated a win that takes this series back to Moscow on Tuesday.
Yan puts Torpedo through
Dynamo Moscow 1 Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod 2 OT (0-0, 1-1, 0-0, 0-1)
(Torpedo wins the series 4-2)
Igor Larionov’s Torpedo advanced to the second round of the playoffs in the Professor’s first season as a KHL head coach. An overtime win in Moscow this afternoon wrapped up this first-round match-up in six games with the influential Denis Yan getting the all-important goal.
Yan, a 25-year-old Russian/American dual national, made it four goals in two games with another brace today. That adds to a fine debut season in the KHL, where he had 39 (15+24) points in the regular season.
Today, Yan ended Dynamo’s dreams of battling for the cup. Midway through the game, he opened the scoring when he forced home a rebound from close range. That all stemmed from the visitor’s press stripping Yegor Martynov of the puck behind his own net. Although the home team had enjoyed much of the play up to that point, Torpedo’s willingness to work hard – an underestimated feature of Larionov’s team this season – produced a big moment in the game.
However, it was not a gamechanger. Eric O’Dell produced a quick answer for the Blue-and-Whites, tying the game 70 seconds later. The Canadian potted five goals in his final four playoff games of the season yet, ironically, finished on the losing side three times as the season came to an end. His backhand finish immediately put this game right back on the boil as Dynamo sought to take us to a game seven decider. Nonetheless, the next big moment came from Torpedo. Vladislav Firstsov’s touch on the slot almost deceived Konstantin Volkov in the home net. The puck bounced away from him and stopped on the goal line, but Volkov regathered his bearings and managed to prevent it from sneaking into the net.
That wasn’t the first time Torpedo was close to scoring. In a goalless first period the visitor weathered an early surge from Dynamo before twice hitting the piping. Fit-again Alexei Kruchinin fired one against the crossbar in his first playoff appearance this year, and Kirill Voronin also dinged the iron in the opening stanza.
The second session saw those two quickfire goals, but the third was another stalemate. That owed much to Volkov’s goaltending. Torpedo outshot Dynamo 11-4 without finding a way past the home netminder. However, after just 63 seconds of the extras, Yan finished the job. Firstov brought the puck out from behind the net, where Yan had one attempt that was blocked but not cleared. That failure to deal with the danger proved fatal for Dynamo: by the time Yan got back to his feet, the puck was still within his reach and his second effort was too good for Volkov.
