Spartak wins Mayor of Moscow Cup
The last tournament of the summer came to an end in Moscow, with Spartak beating CSKA to lift the Mayor’s cup. Earlier in the day, Dynamo beat Vityaz in the third-place playoff, and Kunlun Red Star edged Amur in a shoot-out. Dinamo Minsk’s run of warm-up games continued with an overtime loss against Torpedo.
Mayor of Moscow Cup
CSKA Moscow 1 Spartak Moscow 3 (0-1, 1-0, 0-2)
Spartak finished its pre-season campaign with victory at the Mayor of Moscow Cup. A 3-1 win in Sunday’s gold medal game ended CSKA’s bid to defend the trophy it won last season.
The first two periods were almost mirror images of one another. In the opening frame, Spartak had much the better of the play, outshooting CSKA 12-4. That was partly due to the three penalties that Sergei Fedorov’s team took in the first. However, there was only one goal, scored by Alexander Burmistrov in the 20th minute, converting the third of those PPs.
In the middle frame, though, CSKA had the edge. The shot count read 13-3 in the Red-and-Blues’ favor, and the penalty count also turned around. The pressure resulted in Vladislav Kamenev tying the game, and maintaining his record of scoring in every game here.
However, that was not enough to set CSKA on the way to victory. Instead, Spartak responded in the third to take the title. Alexander Khokhlachyov made the breakthrough in the 57th minute, racing onto Burmistrov’s cross-ice pass and advancing down the left to wire a wrister past Ivan Fedotov to convert Spartak’s third power play of the period.
A minute later, Maxim Tsyplakov added a third on the counterattack. He also picked up points in every game of this tournament, including two goals in the win over Kunlun on Friday. As well as collecting the trophy, Spartak also completed its pre-season campaign without suffering a single defeat. No other KHL team managed to match that this summer.
Dynamo Moscow 5 Vityaz Moscow Region 2 (1-1, 3-1, 1-0)
Despite a slow start, Dynamo downed Vityaz to finish third in this year’s competition. A penalty on Cedric Paquette in the second minute gave Vityaz a great chance to take the initiative, and seconds before Paquette left the box, Vladislav Kara converted the power play.
However, Dynamo’s Canadian forward quickly atoned for his early penalty, tying the game with a power play goal of his own. The teams were level at the intermission, but Dynamo moved in front at the start of the second period thanks to Yegor Morozov. That lead did not last long – Stanislav Yarovoy tied it up within a couple of minutes. However, in the second half of the game, Dynamo took control. Paquette got his second of the game, then defenseman Andrei Mironov added a pair of his own, including an empty netter, to make the final score 5-2. Jordan Weal had three assists for Dynamo.
Amur Khabarovsk 3 Kunlun Red Star 4 SO (3-1, 0-0, 0-2, 0-0, 0-1)
The Dragons showed plenty of resilience to snatch a shoot-out win over the Tigers. Despite grabbing an early lead through Spencer Foo – the Chinese international has at least one point in every pre-season game he played this summer – Kunlun found itself behind at the intermission. Alex Broadhurst quickly tied the scores, and later added another. Broadhurst’s second came moments after Sergei Lapin scored, and the pair gave the Tigers a 3-1 lead at the break.
After a goalless second period, in which KRS replaced starting goalie Alexander Lazushin with Jeremy Smith, the Dragons got back into the game in the third. Amur’s lead evaporated when Sergei Kolesnikov took back-to-back penalties. Both ended in Kunlun goals, one from Kyle Wood, the other from Luke Lockhart.
Lockhart would go on to claim the winning penalty shot, but before that Smith faced a stern examination in OT. The Dragons were two players down at the start of the extras and, after killing those penalties, lost Doyle Somerby on a major. Smith stopped 10 shots in five minutes with his defense at full stretch, and kept his team in the game. Then, in the shoot-out, he remained flawless, saving four Amur attempts to claim the W.
Warm-up game
Dinamo Minsk 1 Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod 2 OT (0-1, 0-0, 1-0, 0-1)
The last three days of pre-season sees Dinamo and Torpedo keeping busy. The two played each other on Sunday, and both teams will face Admiral on Monday and Tuesday respectively. The Bison also played the Sailors yesterday, winning 4-1.
Torpedo was playing its first game for a week, and unsurprisingly looked fresher in the early exchanges. However, that translated into just one goal, a power play effort from Maxim Letunov scored on starting goalie Dylan Ferguson.
However, Letunov’s marker almost proved decisive. The 1-0 lead endured until the final minute before a Minsk power play – plus the removal of back-up goalie Yegor Velmakin – enabled Gemel Smith to tie it up with 20 seconds on the clock.
Smith’s goal could not save Dinamo from defeat, though. Despite repeatedly testing Ivan Kulbakov in the extras, a breakaway from Alexei Kruchinin brought the winner for Torpedo.
