CSKA edges in front. April 21 playoffs
The defending champion moves ahead in this year’s Gagarin Cup final after withstanding a third-period storm from Ak Bars.
CSKA Moscow 3 Ak Bars Kazan 2 (0-0, 3-1, 0-1)
(CSKA leads the series 2-1)
As the Gagarin Cup final arrived in Moscow with the teams perfectly poised at 1-1, fans at the CSKA Arena were treated to a fast start. The teams leapt onto the attack from the first puck drop, and both could have taken the lead in the first minutes. In the first minute, Ilya Safonov charged down the wing for Ak Bars and fired the puck to the slot, but Dmitry Voronkov could not quite force it into the net.
Almost immediately, CSKA responded with a similar play. Prokhor Poltapov was the provider but, although Mikhail Grigorenko got a stick to his feed, the puck flew over the crossbar. Back at the other end, Kirill Semyonov’s pass found Stanislav Galiyev all alone in front of Adam Reideborn’s net. On this occasion, though, the home goalie came up with a big save.
All that came in the first three minutes. Subsequently, things calmed a little. The teams continued to play at a high tempo, but both defenses tightened up. Most of the chances were now coming on the counter and the first period ended goalless with the teams sharing 12 shots on goal.
The breakthrough came at the start of the second. Safonov caught Konstantin Okulov with a high stick and CSKA had the game’s first power play. Grigorenko converted that into the opening goal when he collected Nikita Nesterov’s cross-ice pass and fired home from a tight angle.
However, the lead was shortlived. Ak Bars tied it up on the next attack, with Voronkov on target. Daniil Zhuravlyov jumped on a loose puck and burst down the wing before setting up his team-mate for the tying goal.
The visitor continued to press, and midway through the game Galiyev set up Artyom Lukoyanov with a great chance to put Ak Bars in front. However, Lukoyanov’s shot from the right-hand channel flashed wide of the target and CSKA survived. That was a wake-up call that the home team heeded; four minutes later, Poltapov’s surge through the middle ended in his attempted shot being charged down. The puck skittered back off the boards and fell to Maxim Sorkin who finished off from close range.
CSKA extended its lead with a power play goal late in the session. Nesterov set up Anton Slepyshev down the left and while Grigorenko screened Timur Bilyalov, Slepyshev found a path to the far corner to make it 3-1.
It stayed that way until the intermission, but after the break Ak Bars raised its game. The visitor pressed CSKA back from the first moments, and got its reward when Alexander Radulov made it a one-goal game. This was another flamboyant effort from one of the league’s most exciting forwards, with Radulov finding a path between two opponents before getting his shot off despite the attentions of Vladislav Provolnev.
Immediately after, Ak Bars got on the power play and Vadim Shipachyov’s shot almost gave Galiyev a goal on the rebound. That time, the puck went narrowly over the top and the Muscovites managed to kill Semyon Pankratov’s penalty.
However, they couldn’t easily shift the momentum of the game. Ak Bars continued to press as the evening entered its closing stages, and a one-goal lead looked perilous. Radulov came close to squeezing a late shot past Reideborn from a dead angle, then in the final minute Semyonov’s redirect almost beat the CSKA goalie. In the end, the home team was relieved to hear the final hooter and secure its 2-1 lead in the series.
