KHL press office
exclusive for khl.ru
Dragons stun table-topping Dynamo. November 8 round-up
League leader Dynamo missed the chance to record a 10th consecutive victory. Kunlun’s overtime win in Moscow gave the Chinese franchise its first ever KHL victory over the Blue-and-Whites. Metallurg returned to the top of the Eastern Conference thanks to a 6-3 win over Sibir, with Denis Zernov scoring twice for the home time. Torpedo enjoyed a comfortable win at Vityaz, with Nikolai Kovalenko contributing three points. Earlier in the day, Admiral ended its run of losses with a 5-2 success over Lokomotiv.
Emphatic Admiral ends losing streak
Admiral Vladivostok 5 Lokomotiv Yaroslavl 2 (3-0, 2-0, 0-2)
The Sailors snapped a four-game skid and prevented Lokomotiv from building on its 4-1 win at Amur earlier in its Far East tour. Igor Nikitin’s team was looking at that result as a possible springboard after a run of disappointing form, but instead fell to a seventh loss in nine games.
Admiral handed a debut to Yegor Morozov, recently arrived from Dynamo Moscow. There was also a return for veteran defenseman Maxim Chudinov.
In the opening stages, Lokomotiv played the better hockey but could not make the most of a series of decent chances. Gradually, Admiral got back into the game, and opened the scoring in the 15th minute on a Nikita Anokhovsky goal. Anokhovsky learned his hockey in Yaroslavl and today celebrated his first goal since joining Admiral from Lada.
After that, the visitor ran into penalty trouble. Daniil Gutik, another player from the Lokomotiv academy, potted a power play goal. A minute before the hooter Prokhor Korbit added a third, again on the PP. That was the end of the game for starting goalie Daniil Isayev, with Ivan Bocharov sent onto the ice in his place.
For long chunks of the middle frame, Lokomotiv kept Admiral pegged into its own zone. Once again, though, the Railwaymen could not make the most of possession and chances. And, once again, penalties were the visitor’s undoing. This time it was a five-on-three power play, and Chudinov celebrated his return with Admiral’s fourth goal. Alexei Solovyov claimed his third assist. Then Chudinov took a penalty, Lokomotiv opted for a sixth skater, and with Bocharov on the bench, Denis Golubev found the empty net to make it 5-0. That was Golubev’s first goal of the season, in his 16th appearance.
In the final frame, Lokomotiv belatedly found the net. Sergei Andronov scored his 100th KHL goal, Pavel Kraskovsky made it 2-5, and that was how it finished.
Zernov’s double leads Metallurg back to the top
Metallurg Magnitogorsk 6 Sibir Novosibirsk 3 (3-0, 2-2, 1-1)
Under David Nemirovsky, Sibir is establishing a tradition of falling behind by a couple of goals. Today was the fourth game in a row that the Siberians allowed the opposition to forge ahead before starting to make inroads later in the action.
Metallurg needed just 11 minutes to open a 2-0 lead in this game, with Denis Zernov getting both of them. His first was a short-handed effort, following up to score from the rebound after Danil Gololobov’s breakaway shot was saved. Then came a power play marker thanks to a superb one-timer.
Magnitka’s power play is currently under the guidance of legendary forward Sergei Mozyakin, who recently joined Andrei Razin’s coaching staff. After Zernov converted his team’s first PP chance, Luke Johnson took advantage of the second to make it 3-0 at the first intermission.
Things got worse for Sibir at the start of the second period when Nikita Mikhailis added a fourth, but the middle frame brought some encouragement for the visitor. The penalty kill worked at last, and when Georgy Belousov returned to the game he went on to post his 100th KHL goal and get Sibir on the board at last. However, yet another home power play saw Semyon Koshelev restore that four-goal lead.
Sibir still tried to make a game of it, and goals from Vladimir Butuzov and Yegor Spiridonov came either side of the second intermission to keep the scoreline respectable. But there would be no dramatic fightback. Instead, home captain Yegor Yakovlev applied the finishing touch to add a sixth goal as his team returned to the top of the Eastern Conference.
Kovalenko inspires Torpedo to win
Vityaz Moscow Region 1 Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod 4 (0-1, 1-2, 0-1)
Nikolai Kovalenko led the way as Torpedo sent Vityaz spinning to a fifth successive loss. He had 3 (2+1) points in the game to help his team secure a third win of the season over today’s opponent.
For the home team, a goal from captain Vladimir Galuzin late in the second period raised brief hopes of a fightback, but Torpedo was in no mood to let the opposition back into the game.
This one went wrong for Vityaz from the start. In the third minute, Kovalenko put Torpedo ahead and moments after that the visitor got on the power play after Ivan Yezhov’s infringement. There was no further scoring, but the home team struggled to generate much offense. Despite two power plays late in the session, Vityaz was restricted to just two shots at Adam Huska.
Early in the second, Kovalenko turned provider as Maxim Letunov doubled the lead on the power play. Then Torpedo’s Bobby Lynch put the puck in Dmitry Shikin’s net, only for a bench challenge to see that effort overturned due to offside. It wasn’t a long wait for the third goal, however: another power play saw Kovalenko pot his second of the game with a shot that dinged in off the post.
Vityaz showed more enterprise in this second period, and was rewarded in the 40th minute when Galuzin got his team on the board. However, any hopes of a revival in the third came to nothing, and Kirill Voronin’s goal in the 54th minute put the result beyond any doubt.
Dragons make history in Moscow
Dynamo Moscow 2 Kunlun Red Star 3 OT (1-1, 1-1, 0-0, 0-1)
Kunlun grabbed a sensational overtime victory to record a historic success against Dynamo Moscow. Brandon McMillan scored in the extras to secure the Dragons’ first ever KHL victory over the Blue-and-Whites.
Previously, Dynamo enjoyed an unbeaten record against this opponent and the pre-game portents suggested that run would continue with little difficulty. The Blue-and-Whites topped the table ahead of Wednesday’s action, and Alexei Kudashov’s team was on a nine-game unbeaten run. Red Star, by contrast, lost its last five and was down in 10th place in the West.
Many of the first period stats supported the idea that this game was all about the home team. Dynamo led the shot count 16-8, won 10 out of 12 faceoffs and had more than seven minutes of attacking possession against 2:23 for the opposition. Yet it took an 18th-minute power play goal from Cedric Paquette to break the deadlock, and the Dragons responded swiftly through Devin Brosseau to go to the intermission tied at 1-1.
That pattern returned in the second. Dynamo’s second PP of the night brought a goal for Vladislav Mikhailov, but exactly 60 seconds later Luke Lockhart levelled. And if the home team could feel hard done by that it didn’t lead after 20 minutes, the middle stanza was a more even contest that suggested KRS was decent value for the tied scoreline.
In the third session, Dynamo once again got on top. However, the home team was unable to find a way past Matt Jurusik in the Red Star net, despite enjoying two more power play chances.
When it came to overtime, however, the home team could not maintain its earlier control of the play. Nikita Gusev took a penalty, and the Dragons grabbed a power play winner. McMillan took advantage of the extra space around Maxim Motorygin’s net, peeling away to the back door to fire Wong’s feed into a gaping target and deny Dynamo a 10th successive win.
