Highest-scoring Women’s All-Star Game
All-Star Week got underway on Saturday in Tula with the Women’s Hockey League All-Star Game. Once again, the top players from Europe’s longest established pro women’s tournament divided into East and West and the faced off in front of a capacity crowd on Saturday afternoon.
Team West 4 Team East 5 (2-1, 2-2, 0-2)
And the two teams did not disappoint. This was an end-to-end battle that could have gone either way. Team East, led by Olga Sosina with 4 (2+2) points, eventually took the verdict by the odd goal in nine. The east rallied to win it in the third period, with Daria Gredzen keeping the western forwards at bay in the final frame. The result ties the series between the two conferences at 3-3, while the nine goals in the game represent an all-time Women’s All-Star record.
Team West made the brighter start, however. Landysh Falyakhova opened the scoring in the seventh minute, then a power play chance saw Maria Polozkova double that lead. Polozkova is just 15, and today became the youngest woman to score in an All-Star Game. Followers of her club, 7.62, won’t be surprised by that: she leads the Moscow Region team in scoring this term.
The east got back into the game in the 14th minute when defender Maria Batalova found the net. Sosina collected her first assist of the afternoon.
There was more excitement in the second period. First, Ilona Markova missed a penalty shot that would have brought Team East level. Forty-five seconds later, Elizaveta Shkalyova made it 3-1 for the West. Then came a lull in the scoring, before another blast of goals late in the frame. In the 38th minute, the east scored twice in the space of 16 seconds to draw level. Sosina and Anna Shibanova were on target. But Team West took a lead into the second intermission when Alexandra Nesterova struck on 38:32.
That set the stage for a big finish, and Team East duly delivered. Sosina tied it up early in the third, then engineered a short-handed goal for Veronika Korzhakova to give her team the lead for the first time in the game. With 10 minutes to play, there was time for the West to recover but Gredzen proved unbeatable in the eastern net, backstopping her team to a 5-4 win.
As well as the game, the players also took on some skills challenges during the intermission. First up was the speed skating event, won by Anna Lopukhova in a time of 16.71 seconds. Anna is a Tula native, so her success was especially popular with her hometown crowd. The second break saw the ever-popular penalty shot contest, won by the league’s scoring leading Anna Shokhina. She donned the robes of the Empress of Hockey for her attempt.
All-Star Week continues Sunday with the Junior Hockey League’s Challenge Cup. As usual, the four best players from that game will get invites to join the 2023 Fonbet KHL All-Stars next weekend in St. Petersburg when the league celebrates its biggest festival of hockey.
