Korshkov’s late show sinks Admiral. December 20 round-up
Wednesday brought a solitary KHL game, with Amur edging past Admiral to win the sixth Far East derby of the season.
Admiral Vladivostok 1 Amur Khabarovsk 2 OT (0-0, 0-0, 1-1, 0-1)
The final Far East derby of the season was destined to decide the winner of this year’s unofficial Caviar Cup. After five previous meetings, Admiral had three victories to Amur’s two. More importantly, both teams needed points to move closer to the playoff zone in the Eastern Conference.
Prior to the international break, the teams played out a one-goal game in Vladivostok, with the home team getting the verdict thanks to a debut goal from Dmitry Zavgorodny. Today’s encounter turned into another low-scoring affair: the teams were goalless through 40 minutes. Nonetheless, Amur made a bright start and asked plenty of questions of Vasily Demchenko in the home net during the early stages. He responded well, snuffing out the chances that the Tigers created for Kirill Slepets, Stanislav Bocharov and Artur Gizdatullin.
The second period saw Amur continue to enjoy the bulk of the play, with Admiral still relying on its counterattacking game. The Sailors had power play chances but struggled to take advantage until the start of the third period. Then, at last, we saw the opening goal when Libor Sulak’s point shot was tipped into the net by Semyon Pankratov to give Admiral the lead on the power play.
After losing 0-1 in the previous meeting, Amur redoubled its efforts to save this one. Jan Drozg had a great chance to save the game in the closing stages, but it wasn’t until a late penalty on Alexander Shevchenko that the visitor managed to tie itup. Yegor Korshkov converted the power play, making it 1-1 with 80 seconds left to play.
That sent us to overtime, and Korshkov again came up trumps. A fast-paced extra period saw chances at both ends before the Amur man potted his second of the night to decide the outcome.
