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Seventh heaven for CSKA, Torpedo moves clear at the top. September 28 round-up
CSKA racked up a big win over in-form Sochi, offering hope that the defending champion is putting a stuttering start to the season behind it. This season’s leader, Torpedo, consolidated its position with an OT win against Ak Bars. There were goals in Cherepovets, where Spartak beat Severstal 5-3, but fans in Balashikha endured the exact opposite as Vityaz and Lada went scoreless through 60 minutes before Vladimir Galuzin won it for the host. In Thursday’s opening action, Barys rallied from 0-2, with Riley Barber continuing his hot streak, but lost in a shoot-out to Admiral.
Barys fightback falls short
Barys Astana 2 Admiral Vladivostok 3 SO (0-1, 1-1, 1-0, 0-0, 0-1)
Admiral returned to Astana after 12 days looking to avenge a 3-4 loss in the teams’ previous meeting. Barys was missing Roman Starchenko, who scored two goals late in that game to snatch the win. Both teams wanted points to lift them towards the playoff spots after tricky starts to the season.
The Sailors outshot Barys two-to-one in the first period, but had only an early Giovanni Fiore goal to show for it. Early in the second, an Admiral power play saw Prokhor Korbit bang in a rebound to double the lead. Daniil Gutik picked up an assist to reinforce his status as Admiral’s leading scorer.
That shook Barys from its torpor, and the home team retrieved one goal in the second period when it converted a double power play. Pontus Aberg followed up his hat-trick at Neftekhimik with his eighth goal of the season, while assists for David Sklenicka and Riley Barber stretched their productive streaks to six games. Barber, a summer signing from the AHL, has made a great start to life in the KHL and he scored a power play goal of his own to tie the game in the second period. That tally moves him to 18 points for the season and puts him top of the KHL scoring race.
The home team might have gone on to win from there, but visiting goalie Pavel Khomchenko repelled a series of late chances to take the game to a shoot-out. In that shoot-out, he started by denying Barber and Admiral got the verdict thanks to Tyler Graovac’s decisive effort.
Power play pushes Torpedo clear at the top
Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod 2 Ak Bars Kazan 1 OT (1-0, 0-0, 0-1, 1-0)
Torpedo consolidated its position on top of the KHL standings with an overtime victory against Ak Bars. Not only did Igor Larionov’s team move two points clear of its closest rival, Metallurg, it also gave notice of its ability to compete with the best in the league.
In the early exchanges, it was striking that Torpedo was very willing to fire shots at Artur Akhtyamov in the visitor’s net. Midway through the first period, the shot count read 10-3 in the home team’s favor, with Ak Bars struggling to turn its time in the Torpedo zone into anything threatening. Eventually, the pressure led to a power play goal for Nikita Artamonov, one of the group of promising young forwards maturing under Larionov’s guidance in Nizhny Novgorod.
However, one goal was not likely to be enough for Torpedo. The home defense faced a stern test with a 3-on-5 penalty kill that spanned the first intermission. Ak Bars could not score on that chance, but the momentum began to drift away from the host. Then, at the start of the third, Dmitry Kagarlitsky tied the game and immediately afterwards Ak Bars got on the power play. Suddenly, it seemed like the visitor was getting on top.
A huge effort on the PK kept the score level and that was how it stayed until the hooter. Ak Bars found its shooting range in the closing stages to pepper Adam Huska with shots, but regulation finished deadlocked at 1-1.
In the extras, Alexander Radulov took a tripping penalty and the Torpedo power play came up with the winner. Vasily Atanasov grabbed the goal after the visiting defense failed to clear its zone. Nikolai Kovalenko’s pass to the slot picked out his 21-year-old team-mate, who potted his seventh of the season. For Kovalenko, two assists on the night takes him to 12 points and makes him the scoring leader for his club.
One game, four goalies
Severstal Cherepovets 3 Spartak Moscow 5 (2-1, 1-4, 0-0)
The home team made a flying start to its game against Spartak, but lost its way in the second period and fell to defeat.
Andrei Kozyrev’s team was looking to make it three wins on the spin, and two goals in the first three minutes put Severstal in control. Danil Aimurzin opened the scoring on 34 seconds, then Dmitry Moiseyev doubled that advantage on 2:29.
Alexei Zhamnov responded by withdrawing Andrei Skovronsky and sending the experience Slovak Patrik Rybar into the net. That worked. Spartak stopped allowing goals and, late in the stanza, Nikolai Goldobin pulled one back.
The Red-and-Whites turned this one around at the start of the second period. Lifted by Goldobin’s effort, Spartak turned on the style to score four in 10 minutes. Maxim Tsyplakov got the first and the last, with Yegor Zaitsev and Matvei Zaseda on target in between. Severstal, shellshocked, swapped goalies: Dmitry Shugayev replaced Konstantin Shostak and we saw all four netminders in action in the game.
Right on the hooter Mikhail Ilyin pulled a goal back, but that home tally was not enough to trigger a fightback. Spartak managed the game in the third period, defending its advantage to improve to three wins from four. The result puts the Muscovites into the top four in the West, while Severstal drops to ninth behind CSKA.
Galuzin ends long losing streak
Vityaz Moscow Region 1 Lada Togliatti 0 OT (0-0, 0-0, 0-0, 1-0)
Marooned at the foot of the Western Conference, Vityaz needed a boost. After eight losses, the Moscow Region club halted the slide with a hard-fought win over Lada. Today’s game also brought the team’s first shut-out of the season, with Maxim Dorozhko stopping 34 shots. His opposite number Vladislav Podyapolsky made the same number of saves, but was beaten at the start of overtime.
The early stages weren’t easy for the home team. Lada arrived with plenty of confidence after a run of good form lifted the KHL newcomer to second in the east. Vladimir Galuzin took an early penalty, handed the initiative to the visitor, but Dorozho and his defense held firm to deny a fast start.
That quickly became the pattern of the game. Both teams showed some enterprise on offense, but the two goalies dealt with everything that came to them. And, as time went on, there was more caution on display as it became clear that one goal was likely to be enough.
In overtime, though, with both teams assured of one point, Vityaz wrapped things up quickly. Galuzin needed just 29 seconds to find the winner, scoring with the first shot of the extras.
CSKA thrashes Sochi
CSKA Moscow 7 HC Sochi 1 (1-0, 5-0, 1-1)
Form is temporary, class is permanent. At least, that’s what CSKA was hoping ahead of Thursday’s game. The defending champion clearly has the pedigree, but this season the Leopards have the formbook in their favor. A six-game winning streak had the visitor up in the top four in the West, while CSKA was languishing outside the playoff spots and struggling for consistency.
Sochi has shown no respect for reputation this season, picking up an impressive win in Kazan and thumping Lokomotiv 5-0 in Yaroslavl. However, this trip to Moscow was a step too far for Dmitry Kokorev’s improving team.
CSKA got an early breakthrough, with Danil Yurtaikin potting his first goal of the season in the seventh minute. The game was still live at the first intermission, with neither side adding to the score. In the second, though, the host ran riot. Three goals in five minutes around the midway point took the game away from Sochi and chased starting goalie Maxim Tretyak from the ice. For Tretyak, once a CSKA prospect, this was an unhappy return to his first pro club. Vitaly Abramov, Vladislav Provolnev and Prokhor Poltapov pushed the score out to 4-0 in a rapid burst of scoring.
That brought Mikhail Berdin to the net in the 34th minute. The new goalie fared little better, though. Twice in 66 seconds he was retrieving the puck from his net after a power play goal from Mikhail Grigorenko and a first of the season for Konstantin Okulov.
In the third period, CSKA eased off, content that the job was done. Sochi’s Dmitry Zavgorodny managed a consolation tally midway through the frame, but Yurtaikin had the final say with a seventh goal for the host. The win puts the home team into the playoff places.
