SKA closes on yet another Conference final. March 20 playoffs
Regular season champion SKA is on the verge of reaching its eighth successive conference final after winning its first road game at Torpedo. Monday’s success puts the Petersburg team up 3-0 in the series. Torpedo must win on Wednesday to keep the series alive.
Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod 0 SKA St. Petersburg 4 (0-2, 0-1, 0-1)
(SKA leads the series 3-0)
SKA is just one step away from advancing to the Western Conference final after frustrating Torpedo’s offense in Nizhny Novgord. Goalie Dmitry Nikolayev put up a big performance to subdue the home team, while some clinical finishing at the other end saw the regular season champion take control.
In the first period there was little to choose between the two teams. Both had 20 attempts at goal, with Torpedo putting eight on target and SKA nine. There wasn’t much difference in the amount of attacking possession either. However, the visitor proved far more effective in front of goal, scoring twice to take control of the game. Marat Khairullin got the first in the 12th minute, profiting from some good work from Damir Zhafyarov on the right-hand boards and moving onto his pass before shooting through Ivan Kulbakov’s pads. A couple of minutes later, Zhafyarov scored himself, pouncing on the rebound after Kulbakov failed to control the rebound from a routine point shot from Roman Rukavishnikov.
In the second period, Torpedo had much more of the play. The home team was helped by three power play chances, but could not convert any of them into goals. On the contrary, midway through the session SKA conjured a short-handed tally to increase its lead. The visitor forced the puck into center ice, from where Khairullin spun to deliver a fantastic pass that released Alexander Nikishin one-on-one with Kulbakov. The young defenseman has been prolific in his first season with SKA, and produced another accurate finish to net his second goal of the playoffs. In the regular season, Nikishin had 55 (11+44) points to lead the league in scoring from the blue line.
At the other end, Nikolayev had a busier time. By the end of the middle frame, Torpedo led the shot count 24-18 but could not find a way to goal. Perhaps the best chance came early in the frame, when Kirill Voronin and Alexander Daryin went close in quick succession. However, their flurry of attempts could not find a way into the SKA net.
In the third period, as expected, SKA was willing to play defensively and protect its lead. Torpedo got another 14 shots at Nikolayev but still could not find a way past the visiting goalie. Alexei Kruchinin, one of the leading scorers in the regular season, had several promising openings during the course of the game but was unable to hit the net. SKA concentrated on doing the simple things well: the team blocked 17 shots over the 60 minutes, with almost every player making at least one block. In addition, they won 62.5% of face-offs in the third period, frustrating Torpedo’s efforts to generate momentum and put Nikolayev under sustained pressure.
In the closing stages the home team got a penalty and withdrew Kulbakov to finish the game playing six-on-four. However, rather than providing the psychological lift of a consolation goal, that tactic merely led to Khairullin scoring his second of the night into an empty net. He finished with three points, Nikolayev made 38 saves.
