Bashkirov treble leaves Magnitka reeling. October 8 round-up

Salavat Yulaev hit Metallurg for six, with young forward Danil Bashkirov claiming a hat-trick just two days after the same fixture produced a similarly convincing win for Magnitogorsk. Elsewhere, Ak Bars edged a 2-1 verdict at Admiral, Amur beat Lada and Avtomobilist took down Neftekhimik in overtime.

Tigers end long wait for Lada success

Amur Khabarovsk 4 Lada Togliatti 2 (1-0, 0-0, 3-2)

After Lada defeated Amur 5-1 in the teams’ first meeting of the season, the Tigers got revenge today. In the process, they snapped an unlikely series to beat the Motormen in Khabarovsk for the first time since December 2009.

Lada welcomed back captain Mikhail Fisenko from injury. He made his first appearance since Sep. 16, but could not lift his team to victory. Yakov Rylov potted the only goal of the first period to give Amur the edge and the goalless second period saw plenty of work for visiting goalie Vladislav Podyapolsky. He made 17 saves to keep his team in the game.

Podyapolsky was powerless in the third, though. Evgeny Grachyov increased the lead on the power play, then Dmitry Shevchenko made it 3-0 in the 49^th minute. Maybe at that point, the home team assumed the job was done. Certainly, Lada came back into the game on two goals within 40 seconds from Scott Kosmachuk and Nikita Popugayev. That prompted the home bench to call a time-out, and the message clearly worked: after raising the tempo, the Tigers kept Lada at bay and wrapped it up with an empty-net goal from Yegor Korshkov.

Akhtyamov backstops Ak Bars to victory

Admiral Vladivostok 1 Ak Bars Kazan 2 (0-2, 0-0, 1-0)

Alexander Radulov snapped his 11-game streak without a goal last time out, and today he potted the winner for Ak Bars. Radulov’s tally made it a winning start for last season’s finalist as it began its Far East road trip.

Admiral was looking to build on back-to-back wins over Lada. However, that was not enough to put the home team back into the top eight in the East.

Radulov was involved in the game early, but his seventh-minute penalty handed Admiral the initiative. However, the Sailors could not take the chance and fell behind after 13 minutes when Artyom Lukoyanov found the net.

Within three minutes, a power play for the visitor saw Radulov on target, doubling the lead with a one-timer. The 2-0 lead rather flattered Ak Bars, which managed just seven shots on goal in the first period.

The balance of play favored Admiral even more in the second stanza, with the shot count reading 24-7 to the home team’s credit. This was a stiff test for young Kazan goalie Artur Akhtyamov, who is currently first choice following injuries to Timur Bilyalov and Amir Miftakhov. Many of the brightest moments involved Daniil Gutik and Prokhor Korbit and eventually these two saw Admiral pull a goal back in the third period. Getting on the power play late in the game, Admiral replaced goalie Pavel Khomchenko with a sixth skater, Alexander Gorshkov, and he also had an assist as Korbit halved the deficit.

There was still almost three full minutes to play, and most of that time was spent in six-on-five action. However, there was no tying goal as Ak Bars held on.

Ufa gets instant, impressive revenge

Metallurg Magnitogorsk 2 Salavat Yulaev Ufa 6 (0-4, 0-1, 2-1)

Times change pretty fast in this league. On Friday, Metallurg thumped Salavat Yulaev 6-3, with Nikita Grebyonkin potting a hat-trick. However, the closing stages of the game saw the Ufa offense finally get the measure of Artyom Zagidulin in the Magnitka net and, within 48 hours, the men in green showed how much they had learned from the experience.

It didn’t take long to get Zagidulin under pressure again here. Danil Bashkirov opened the scoring in the eighth minute, ushering in a dominant first period for the visitor. Not even a home power play, gifted by a needless foul from Yegor Suchkov behind Zagidulin’s net, could leave Magnitka. Artyom Pimenov showed how it should be done when Ufa got its first PP of the day, converting it after just 18 seconds. The video review lasted longer than the power play itself. Vladislav Yefremov added a third, chasing the goalie from his net in favor of Alexander Sudnitsin. That change made little difference, and Bashkirov’s second of the game made it 4-0 at the first intermission.

Desperate to get back into the game, Metallurg head coach Andrei Razin twice called Sudnitsin to the bench with his team on the power play in the second period. It made no difference. Salavat defended well, and extended its lead when Alexei Vasilevsky joined the attack to score the fifth.

At the start of the third, Bashkirov completed his hat-trick with a short-handed goal into the empty net. After the end of the first period, Metallurg had more of the attacking play. However, Ilya Ezhov kept his goal intact until the closing moments. The last five minutes brought consolation markers for Pavel Akolzin and Maxim Karpov, but did nothing to change the final result.

Avto wins four in a row

Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk 2 Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg 3 OT (1-1, 0-0, 1-1, 0-1)

With transfer talk swirling around Neftekhimik’s Andrei Chivilyov, he was left out of the team today. That paved the way for Anthony Camara to return after a week in which his future was also subject to media speculation. Avtomobilist made few changes, but Vladislav Leontyev was scratched from the defense for a meeting with an opponent coached by his father.

Avtomobilist arrived looking to extend a three-game winning streak. However, the Motormen were mindful of a 0-1 loss here at the start of the season. Nikolai Zavarukhin’s team jumped onto the attack from the first moments, putting together several effective combinations in the Neftekhimik zone but failing to seriously test young goalie Filipp Dolganov.

Instead, Neftekhimik took the lead through Andrei Belozyorov with a power play tally in the 12^th minute. That was the home team’s first shot on goal. Undeterred, the visitor continued to press and tied it up three minutes later through Stephane Da Costa.

Neither team could really take control of the game in a goalless second period. In the course of the action, Da Costa suffered an injury and returned to the locker room for some time. The Frenchman returned in the third to join a five-on-three power play, and his contribution set up Brooks Macek to make it 2-1 to the visitor.

That was not enough to win it, though. Another home power play late in the game saw Belozyorov tie the scores. However, overtime saw Avtomobilist take the points after Artyom Serikov went to the box and Alexei Byvaltsev scored on the power play.