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Spartak adds to SKA’s woe, Torpedo goes top in the West. September 12 round-up
SKA played its home opener looking to bounce back after back-to-back losses on the road. Instead, it suffered a shut-out loss to a Spartak team that allowed 17 goals in its first four games. The Red-and-Whites move to within two points of the early leaders in the Western Conference, while Torpedo’s 3-1 win over Admiral pushes it ahead of Kunlun, beaten 1-2 at Lokomotiv. In the East, Ak Bars needed overtime to defeat Dinamo Minsk while Lada got a revenge win at Traktor.
Lada avenges Traktor loss
Traktor Chelyabinsk 1 Lada Togliatti 3 (1-1, 0-0, 0-2)
When these teams met on the first weekend of the season, Traktor took a 2-1 win from Togliatti to spoil Lada’s return to the KHL. But revenge comes quickly for the Motormen. After winning their first game on Saturday, Oleg Bratash’s men followed up with success in Traktor at the start of the first road trip of the season.
It was a win forged in some adversity, with injury keeping several of Lada’s leaders at home. That meant a KHL debut for Evgeny Groshev. Traktor remained unchanged after defeating Vityaz 3-2 in its previous game.
The home team made a fast start and in the second minute Vitaly Kravtsov opened the scoring. That was his 100th KHL point (54+46). However, it didn’t take long for Lada to tie it up: Scott Kosmachuk converted the first power play of the game. That was the end of the scoring in the first period, but not the end of the incident. Traktor had a goal disallowed, Zharkov’s effort ruled out on a video review. The home team was also unable to make the most of a five-on-three power play.
Although Traktor had the better of the opening frame, Lada improved in the second and the game was more even. But there were still no goals. Early in the third, Lada had two power play opportunities. Still no goals. Finally, midway through the session, Troy Josephs made the breakthrough when he finished off a long spell of pressure on the home net. Josephs moves to 4+1 for the season, leading Lada in scoring.
Traktor tried to hit back, but instead hit a wall of visiting defense before Nikita Popugayev sealed the win with an empty-net goal.
Ak Bars Kazan 2 Dinamo Minsk 1 OT (0-1, 1-0, 0-0, 1-0)
Dmitry Kvartalnov returned to Ak Bars with his new club, Dinamo Minsk – and gave his former employer plenty to think about. A hard-fought, low-scoring game saw Kazan trail for some time before eventually coming through to win in overtime.
Minsk forward Vitaly Pinchuk has been one of the early pacesetters in the KHL scoring race and he was on target again to give Dinamo a first-period lead. He found the net for the fourth game in a row and moves to eight points for the season after grabbing a short-handed tally in the eighth minute.
Although that goal came when Ak Bars had the momentum, the session as a whole saw Dinamo looking slightly the better team. The Bison were decent value for a lead at the intermission and Kvartalnov, whose time in Kazan ended without him securing the Gagarin Cup that would put the seal on an impressive career, could be satisfied with his team’s performance so far.
He had even more reason to happy with Dinamo’s play in the second period. The visitor had the bulk of the possession and peppered Timur Bilyalov’s net with shots. However, the home goalie coped with that workload and, at the other end, Daniil Zhuravlyov potted the only goal of the frame to tie the scores.
Ak Bars knew that it rode its luck in that session, and Zinetula Bilyaletdinov ensured that his team clamped down hard on the visiting offense in the final frame. As a result, chances were hard to come by and the game moved into overtime. The extras were done in a minute. Pinchuk had a half-chance at one end, before Alexander Radulov got the puck and headed down the ice. Dinamo was hindered by a line change, but still allowed the home captain too easy a passage into the danger zone. Radulov’s feed was perfectly placed for Kirill Semyonov to score his 250th KHL point and win the game for Ak Bars.
Likhachyov’s late strike sinks stubborn Red Star
Lokomotiv Yaroslavl 2 Kunlun Red Star 1 (0-0, 1-1, 1-0)
Loko got back on track after yesterday’s 0-5 drubbing at the hands of Sochi. Maybe the quick turnaround helped, ensuring little time to dwell on what went wrong on Monday. Whatever the reasons, Igor Nikitin’s team responded to beat Western Conference leader Kunlun and go at least some way towards putting that heavy lost in the past.
It took some time for Lokomotiv to get on top of the game, however. The home team had the better of the first period, but could not find a way past Jeremy Smith in the visiting net. It remained goalless until the 35th minute, when Andrei Sergeyev broke the deadlock at last.
However, the Lokomotiv lead did not last long. Kunlun got a power play – its third of the day – and tied the scores before the intermission. Spencer Foo marked his brother’s 25th birthday by banging home the rebound after a Zac Leslie shot came back off the boards.
The Dragons might have hoped that back-to-back games would take a toll on the home team in the final frame. However, there was little evidence of that. For the first time in the evening, Lokomotiv enjoyed clear superiority all over the ice. There was plenty of pressure on Smith’s net, and the breakthrough came in the 55th minute. Yaroslav Likhachyov, whose return to the club was much anticipated after a successful season on loan at Amur, obliged with his third goal of the season. Curiously, Lokomotiv has won each of the three games in which the 22-year-old scored, while losing on both occasions when he was silenced.
Torpedo climbs to Western summit
Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod 3 Admiral Vladivostok 1 (0-0, 2-0, 1-1)
Kunlun’s loss opened the door for Torpedo to move to the top of the Western Conference if it could defeat Admiral. Igor Larionov’s team was seeking a fourth successive win this season, while the Sailors wanted to build on last week’s 6-2 humbling of Spartak.
For 20 minutes, Torpedo had the edge. However, despite enjoying a noticeable advantage in terms of possession, the home team was unable to find many opportunities to test Nikita Serebryakov in the visitor’s net. His defense blocked shots and worked hard to keep Torpedo to the perimeter, leaving just 10 shots that required the goalie’s intervention.
In the middle frame, the pattern changed. Ironically, as Admiral enjoyed more possession of its own, Torpedo got more looks at Serebryakov. Midway through the game, that brought the opening goal as a turnover on the home blue line saw Maxim Letunov sweep home Nikolai Kovalenko’s pass on a breakaway.
The home team then killed a couple of penalties, briefly playing with three skaters, before Vladislav Firstov doubled the lead on the power play. Teenage defenseman Anton Silayev, the first player born in 2006 to appear in the KHL, continued his bright start to the season with a fourth assist of his rookie season.
Admiral responded early in the third, with Pavel Varfolomeyev pulling a goal back in the 45th minute. However, Torpedo was not about to lose its grip on this game. Igor Larionov Jr made it 3-1 in the 57th minute. The coach’s son claimed his first goal of the season to put the game out of the Sailors’ reach.
Home opener turns sour for SKA
SKA St. Petersburg 0 Spartak Moscow 3 (0-0, 0-2, 0-1)
In Petersburg, expectations are always high. Yet SKA arrived for its home opener stung by back-to-back losses in its visits to Torpedo and Lokomotiv. There was talk that all was not well in the team, with teenage prodigy Matvei Michkov scratched by head coach Roman Rotenberg. Today, Michkov’s immediate future was resolved: he’s heading back to Sochi for another loan spell at the club where he glittered among last season’s strugglers.
Back in Petersburg, SKA faced a Spartak team with its own concerns. Head coach Alexei Zhamnov knows Rotenberg well from the international game, and his team had an identical record of two wins and two losses from four games. The Red-and-Whites were left red-faced after the last home game, a 2-6 loss to Admiral that highlighted the defensive problems on Zhamnov’s team. Allowing 17 goals in four games tells the story of Spartak’s season so far.
Based on those numbers, few would have backed Patrik Rybar for a shut-out tonight. Yet the Slovak netminder did just that, defying SKA’s offense to secure a win that will surely give his team a huge boost. He was helped by a big defensive performance that limited the home team to just two shots in the first period and nine through 40 minutes. It was the kind of toothless attacking performance that will only add urgency to questions about Michkov – the kind of player that can unpick any defense – and offered little to suggest that Arseny Gritsyuk, another highly promising youngster who made his SKA debut today, would bring any immediate answers.
At the other end, Spartak created more chances, and took them. Two second period goals gave the visitor a winning lead. Andrei Loktionov opened the scoring on the half-hour, and Ivan Morozov’s power play tally took the visitor into the second intermission with a 2-0 advantage.
In the third period, at last, we saw SKA’s offense get into the game. After nine shots in 40 minutes, the home team had 20 in the final 20. A desperate situation demanded bold tactics and SKA went for all-out attack. On 55:29, when Spartak’s Morozov took a tripping minor, Rotenberg withdrew goalie Johan Mattsson and played the rest of the game with an extra forward. Rybar stood on his head in the closing stages, turning away a fusillade of shots. Then came the final blow: Ansel Galimov into an empty net, making a 3-0 final.
