Grigorenko’s treble puts CSKA one step from final. April 10 playoffs
Despite a slow start, CSKA came from two goals down to produce a convincing victory in game five of the Western Conference final. Now the defending champion is one step away from returning to the Gagarin Cup final after Mikhail Grigorenko’s hat-trick paced a 7-3 win in Petersburg.
SKA St. Petersburg 3 CSKA Moscow 7 (2-2, 0-1, 1-4)
(CSKA leads the series 3-2)
A remarkable first period saw SKA threaten to put the game out of reach, yet the home team was pegged back to 2-2 by the intermission. A blistering start saw the host jump to a 2-0 lead. After applying the pressure from the first face-off, SKA got in front on 6:51 through Alexander Nikishin when the young defenseman stepped up from the blue line and fired a shot past Adam Reideborn. Within a minute, it was two. Nikolai Prokhorkin, back in the team after missing Saturday’s win in Moscow, surged down the right before setting up Emil Galimov on the slot.
Moments later, Valentin Zykov almost added a third, and by the midway point in the first period the shot count read 13-1 in SKA’s favor.
However, CSKA dug deep and hit back to tie the game. The visitor was forced to play on the counterattack, but and when Pavel Karnaukhov dished off the puck to Anton Slepyshev, his shot rebounded off the boards for Andrei Svetlakov to halve the arrears. Then, within a minute, a two-on-two breakaway saw Maxim Mamin set up Mikhail Grigorenko on the slot to make it 2-2.
Despite that rapid turnaround, SKA continued to create chances in the opening frame and Zakhar Bardakov rang the iron close to the intermission. At the other end, CSKA might have snatched an unlikely lead just before the intermission, but Dmitry Nikolayev denied Sergei Plotnikov’s angled effort.
By the start of the second period, SKA’s early dominance was a mere memory. CSKA had evened out the play and the battle flowed from end-to-end in the middle frame. The home team still had the edge in terms of possession, but the visitor’s counters were more frequent and more dangerous. Ultimately, that broke the deadlock in the 33rd minute. It started with SKA going close – Reideborn padding away a dangerous shot from Zakhar Bardakov – before CSKA swiftly turned defense into attack. Makarov’s long pass down the left released Slepyshev, his pass found Grigorenko and the forward potted his second of the night to put the Muscovites ahead for the first time.
At the start of the third period, SKA’s Dmitrij Jaskin thudded a shot into Reideborn’s helmet, prompting a brief stoppage in play. The goalie was fit to continue, and CSKA soon left the host feeling woozy when Konstantin Okulov added a fourth, game-breaking goal. It all stemmed from a turnover in center ice. Plotnikov sent the puck out to the right wing where Okulov advanced on the net and beat Nikolayev with a wrister to the far corner. Almost immediately, Mamin was close to adding a fifth when he came flying through the middle, easily evading the attentions of Mikhail Pashnin, and fired in a low wrist shot. This time, though, Nikolayev got his pad behind the effort to keep SKA in the game.
Mamin would not be denied, though. Not for the first time, Sergei Fedorov’s team produced a stunningly swift transition with Nikita Nesterov releasing Grigorenko who, in turn, fed Mamin to make it 5-2.
That was the end of Nikolayev’s evening, with Vladislav Podyapolsky coming in to replace SKA’s starting goalie. Admittedly, his time in the game was brief: barely a minute after taking to the ice he was replaced with a sixth skater. The extra man gave the home team hope of a revival: Alexander Volkov made it 3-5 with five minutes left to play. But almost immediately, Grigorenko completed a hat-trick to extinguish SKA’s hopes before Okulov added a seventh late on. The series goes back to Moscow with CSKA knowing that one more victory would wrap it up in game six.
