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Dragons shoot down Eastern leader. September 27 round-up
Kunlun Red Star denied Metallurg the chance to move clear at the top of the KHL standings. The Dragons recovered from 0-2 to grab a shoot-out win over Magnitka, which moves to 17 points alongside Torpedo. Two other teams also clawed back two-goal deficits, but neither Traktor nor Amur could finish the job against Salavat Yulaev and Neftekhimik respectively. Early in the day, SKA reeled off a fourth successive victory with a 3-0 success at Sibir. Lokomotiv enjoyed a 3-1 success over Avtomobilist.
Galchenyuk double sets up SKA’s fourth win
Sibir Novosibirsk 0 SKA St. Petersburg 3 (0-0, 0-2, 0-1)
A week can make a big difference in hockey. Seven days earlier, SKA’s 4-1 win over Severstal snapped a five-game skid and eased some of the pressure that was building in Petersburg. Today, Roman Rotenberg’s team completed a fourth successive victory and recorded its second shut-out of its Far East road trip.
After edging past Admiral, SKA made changes. Brendan Leipsic, who was on the ice for the Sailors only goal, was scratched. Zakhar Bardakov’s line, which scored both SKA’s goals, was promoted from fourth to first.
Although the first period was goalless, SKA enjoyed a clear advantage. For half the play, Sibir was unable to get out of its own zone. That brought penalties, and further pressure, but the visitor’s finishing was awry. For a moment, it seemed that Sibir might land a sucker punch: Pavel Gogolev scored on SKA, only for the officials to call it back due to a high stick from Nikolai Prokhorkin.
The breakthrough had to wait until midway through the game, while Mikhail Vorobyov got his stick to Artyom Sergeyev’s blast. In response, Sibir tried to unpick SKA’s defense, but all too often the final pass went astray. Late in the frame, Alex Galchenyuk doubled the lead. He was assisted by Semyon Sinyatkin, a 19-year-old forward who saw his game time get a boost after Marat Khairullin left the game with an injury. Galchenyuk scored his first goals in Saturday’s shut-out win at Amur and today, again, he finished with a pair. Late in the game, he converted SKA’s sixth power play to wrap up the verdict.
Traktor fightback falls short in Ufa
Salavat Yulaev Ufa 5 Traktor Chelyabinsk 3 (1-1, 2-2, 2-0)
Salavat Yulaev returned from Kazan to entertain another of its closest rivals in the East. Today’s opponent, Traktor, is having a similar kind of season: inconsistent form, inconsistent results. In addition, today’s visitor brought several former Salavat players to Ufa.
The home team has something of a defensive injury crisis, and Viktor Kozlov was forced to test his club’s depth, calling up Ildan Gazimov and Dinis Kadyrov for their KHL debuts. There was better news in goal, where Alexander Samonov returned from illness. Danil Bashkirov was elevated to the first line. Traktor was unchanged from the team that won in Togliatti last time out.
Ufa looked to force the pace from the start, but could not find an immediate breakthrough. Gradually, the play switched to the counterattack and that enabled Nikolai Kulemin to open the scoring in the 15th minute. However, the first power play of the game saw Traktor tie the scores on a goal from Viktor Antipin, who played for Salavat Yulaev last season.
The action picked up in the second stanza. First, the home team took charge with goals from Alexander Sharov and Vladislav Yefremov. However, Traktor was undaunted and tied the game thanks to Mikhail Kotlyarevsky and 18-year-old Alexander Rykov.
It all went wrong for the visitor at the start of the final frame. Sharov set up Kulemin for his second of the game – Sharov would finish with 1+3, while Kulemin had 2+1 – and Traktor’s failed bench challenge led to a home power play. Subsequently, Traktor attempted to find a way back, but the final word went to Nikita Zorkin’s empty-net goal.
Shoot-out settles clash of the strugglers
Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk 3 Amur Khabarovsk 2 SO (1-0, 1-2, 0-0, 0-0, 1-0)
It’s tough at the bottom. Neftekhimik came into this game propping up the Eastern Conference. However, there were some signs of progress. The last two games went to overtime, and one of them saw the Wolves get a narrow win over Avangard. Moreover, today’s visitor, Amur, is also struggling and lost its last three.
So, when Neftekhimik opened a 2-0 lead, there was renewed optimism around the arena. The opening goal went to Nikita Setdikov, recently claimed off waivers from Sibir. He marked his debut with his first tally of the season late in the first period. Early in the second, Nail Yakupov doubled the lead.
But when a team is struggling, things are never straightforward. Amur got a five-on-three power play and used it to tie the game. Dmitry Shevchenko and Jan Drozg found the net with barely 30 seconds between them and Neftekhimik was back to square one.
For the third time in a row, the home team went to overtime. There was no breakthrough in the extras, but the shoot-out went Neftekhimik’s way. Goalie Emil Garipov stopped everything that came his way, while the home forwards were flawless in their execution. It was a difficult journey, but the Wolves reached that much-needed win.
Likhachyov puts Loko on track for victory
Lokomotiv Yaroslavl 3 Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg 1 (0-1, 1-0, 2-0)
Loko moved to within a point of Western Conference leader Torpedo thanks to an entertaining victory over Avtomobilist. The visitor was looking to take second place in the East, but could not build on the opening goal.
Avtomobilist got ahead midway through the first period thanks to Alexei Byvaltsev’s goal. That seemed to go against the early run of play: prior to Byvaltsev’s tally, Loko was up 7-3 on the shot count. However, closer examination of the stats showed that the home team had been far more active in blocking the opposition’s efforts and the true balance of the game was far more even. By the intermission, little had changed: the teams were well-matched, and that solitary goal divided them at the break.
Whatever Igor Nikitin said in the locker room clearly had an impact. In the second period, Lokomotiv came out and took the game to the Motormen. Suddenly, it was the visiting defense called upon to block shot after shot, and most of the play was in front of Vladimir Galkin’s net. The pressure soon brought a tying marker for Georgy Ivanov, but the Railwaymen found it tough to break down a solid Avtomobilist defense and the game remained tied at the second intermission.
The home team began the third period on the penalty kill, but after returning to full strength Loko hit the front for the first time. Yaroslav Likhachyov potted his fifth of the season. But the game was far from finished. Avtomobilist had the puck in the net on 50:11, but a bench challenge from Lokomotiv saw that one whistled down for interference on Daniil Isayev in the home net. The visitor kept battling, but had to admit defeat after Maxim Shalunov found the empty net in the final minute.
Defiant Dragons snatch battling win
Kunlun Red Star 3 Metallurg Magnitogorsk 2 SO (0-2, 0-0, 2-0, 0-0, 1-0)
The Dragons battled back for a sensational shoot-out win that stopped Metallurg moving clear at the top of the overall KHL standings. Despite trailing 2-0 and struggling to test visiting goalie Ilya Nabokov for much of the first two periods, Red Star tied it up in the last 10. Then the home team held its nerve and Luke Lockhart produced the decisive attempt to hand a third straight loss to Andrei Razin’s men.
After defeats at Severstal and Lokomotiv, Metallurg got a much-needed boost at the start of this game. Just 20 seconds in, Kyle Wood took a penalty and the visitor converted that into the opening goal. Alexander Petunin was the scorer with 95 seconds played.
The first period was not exactly full of scoring chances. The teams had 10 shots on goal between them, but Yegor Korobkin made his count to double the lead midway through the session. It wasn’t until late in the frame that we saw much of the home offense, with Ryan Merkley’s intelligent passing causing some mild discomfort for Magnitka’s rearguard.
The second period followed a similar pattern. Metallurg had the better of the game – and this time got more shots at Matt Jurusik – while Red Star struggled to generate anything on the counter. However, there was no further scoring.
Magnitka would come to regret its failure to finish this game off. Midway through the third, just as the visitor was completing a penalty kill, Brandon Yip pulled a goal back. Now Red Star had something to believe in. Nolan Moyle drew a big save from Nabokov, then Danila Palivko went to the box for roughing. With 2:40 on the clock, Zac Leslie scored on the power play to drag the game into overtime.
Having been in cruise control for so long, the visitor struggled to react. Even a power play in overtime could not give Metallurg the edge. And the shoot-out saw Alex Riche and Luke Lockhart on target for the Dragons to snatch a memorable victory.
