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SKA books playoff spot; Severstal, Avangard claim seventh succes. January 19 round-up
SKA became the second team this season to confirm its place in the playoffs. Friday’s home win over Kunlun Red Star makes post season mathematically certain for the Petersburg team. Elsewhere, Severstal defeated Avtomobilist 3-0 to post a seventh straight victory. Avangard equalled that streak with a win on the road at Spartak. CSKA and Metallurg both won 5-2, one away at Barys, the other at home to Admiral, and Lokomotiv edged Amur in overtime.
Okulov double leads CSKA past Barys
Barys Astana 2 CSKA Moscow 5 (0-1, 2-1, 0-3)
CSKA snapped a three-game skid thanks to a strong third-period performance in Kazakhstan. Two goals from Konstantin Okulov and another from Andrei Svetlakov snapped a 2-2 tie and secured a convincing final score.
The first period was dominated by penalties: between them, the teams accrued 14 minutes of box time and both had power play chances. The opening goal duly came with someone on the sidelines, but unexpectedly it was a short-handed effort in the fourth. CSKA’s Vitaly Abramov got away from the defense and beat Andrei Shutov.
It stayed 1-0 until the intermission, but early in the second period Darren Dietz took a penalty and Barys tied the scores. Arkady Shestakov raced to the slot in term to convert a Pontus Aberg feed from the corner. However, it wasn’t long before CSKA was back in front: a turnover in center ice was swiftly converted by Maxim Mamin. Late in the frame another CSKA penalty saw Barys tie the scores once again. Aberg got his second assist of the night as Daniil Apalkov sent the teams to the break locked at 2-2. That second goal came from a second Dietz penalty: the former Barys defenseman apparently offering some assistance to his former club today!
The third period saw CSKA make a fast start that brought two goals in five minutes. Okulov got the go-ahead marker, then Svetlakov’s power play effort doubled the lead. Barys kept looking for a way back, but got nowhere. In the 53rd minute, Okulov potted his second, this time on the power play, to make the final score 5-2.
In-form Severstal posts seventh straight win
Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg 0 Severstal Cherepovets 3 (0-0, 0-2, 0-1)
Avtomobilist rested forwards Anatoly Golyshev and Alexei Byvaltsev. That decision might have contributed to the home team’s failure to score on Severstal as the visitor recorded a seventh successive victory.
Both teams had big chances early in the game. For Severstal, Andrei Churkin dinged the piping. At the other end, Andrei Obidin had a great look at a wide open net, but could not release a one-timer. Subsequently, the visitor adopted its trademark passing and pressing game, enjoying the better of a goalless opening frame.
Severstal took control of the game at the start of the second, scoring two quick goals. The visitor opened the scoring with an odd-man rush, although Yegor Stepanov decided he had no need of his colleague’s help and finished the play all by himself. Three minutes later, a spell of pressure on Evgeny Alikin’s net ended with Kirill Pilipenko perfectly placed to score his 26th goal of the season. Then Alikin had to make a big save to deny Alexander Skorenov a third goal.
In the third period, Severstal’s astute defensive positioning cut out the passing lanes for Avtomobilist, leaving the home team little option but to try to brute force the puck into the net. That didn’t produce much of threat to the visitor either, and penalty trouble sapped the home team’s momentum. In the closing moments, an attempt to play six-on-five went badly wrong and Severstal found itself with a five-on-three power play. Nikita Korostelyov took advantage to make it 3-0 and put the game beyond reach.
Magnitka bounces back
Metallurg Magnitogorsk 5 Admiral Vladivostok 2 (1-0, 0-1, 4-1)
After a high-scoring 4-7 loss at Torpedo, Metallurg returned home and secured a comfortable victory over basement club Admiral. Andrei Razin freshened up his roster after the trip to Nizhny Novgorod, starting with Nikita Podskrebalin in goal and welcoming back Artyom Minulin, Danil Gololobov, Arkhip Nekolenko and fit-again Roman Kantserov. Admiral saw Libor Sulak on the ice for the first time since Jan. 5.
Kantserov, who last played on Dec. 28, celebrated his return with the opening goal of the game midway through the first period. That was an important moment for Metallurg, which found itself under pressure from the Sailors in the opening frame. Admiral outshot its host 13-5 and had good chances to beat Podskrebalin.
That pattern of play continued in the second period and it wasn’t long before Leonid Metalnikov tied the game with a seemingly innocuous shot from the boards. Gradually, Magnitka got its attacking game to function and towards the end of the session had the visitor pegged back. However, Vasily Demchenko ensured that the teams would go into the third period locked at 1-1.
The game developed into a clash of styles. Admiral offered little space to Magnitka in center ice and stifled any offense at source. Few pucks got anywhere near Demchenko. However, Metallurg found a way to score without getting a shot on target: a bounce off Ruslan Ibatullin helped Minulin claim a goal out of nothing.
That was the turning point in the game. A needless foul from Giovanni Fiore sealed Admiral’s fate and the power play brought a masterful interchange between Nikita Grebyonkin and Maxim Karpov to present Denis Zernov with a simple finish past the already-vanquished Demchenko.
Kirill Petkov pulled a goal back for Admiral, but the intrigue did not last long. Grebyonkin showed off his skills to make it 4-2 and send Demchenko back to the bench. Sergei Ivanov came into the closing stages of the game, but was beaten by a power play goal from Karpov to complete the scoring.
Kiryanov’s penalty shot ends Amur’s resistance
Lokomotiv Yaroslavl 3 Amur Khabarovsk 2 OT (1-1, 0-0, 1-1, 1-0)
Western conference leader Lokomotiv had a hard time with an Amur team battling to break into the playoff zone in the East. After 60 minutes, the teams were locked at 2-2 before the Railwaymen got the edge in overtime.
The decisive moment was a penalty shot. Nikita Kiryanov was heading clean through on Igor Bobkov’s net, only to be halted by a foul from Kulik. Kiryanov took the shot himself, flawlessly despatching a wrister beyond the visiting goalie to secure the win.
There was little sign of the battle to come at the start of the game, with Rushan Rafikov opening the scoring after 40 seconds. He stopped the puck on the blue line, skated forward and put a wrister into the top corner for his eighth goal of the season. That makes Rafikov the leading goalscorer among defensemen this season.
However, Amur was level midway through the opening session thanks to Jan Drozg’s power play goal. It took most of the two minutes to create the scoring chance, but the Slovenian forward made no mistake when it arrived, firing an Alexander Khokhlachyov feed past Daniil Isayev.
The second period saw Lokomotiv on top, but 15 saves from Igor Bobkov ensured there was no chance in the scoreline. However, in the 46th minute the home team regained the lead when Martin Gernat joined the attack and put away a wrist shot. This time, the lead was short lived. Fifteen seconds after the goal, Alexei Bereglazov took an interference call and Vladislav Barulin quickly converted the power play.
That forced the game to overtime. Loko started with a long spell of attacking pressure but couldn’t really test Bobkov. Then Yegor Korshkov managed to intercept the puck, but after a long defensive shift he lacked the energy to make the quick counter that the situation demanded. The puck came back down the ice with Kiryanov, who drew the foul that ultimately decided the game.
SKA joins Loko in playoffs
SKA St. Petersburg 3 Kunlun Red Star 1 (0-0, 2-0, 1-1)
SKA confirmed its place in this season’s playoffs thanks to a home victory over Kunlun Red Star. Although Vityaz could still match its 72 points, Roman Rotenberg’s team joins Lokomotiv on the list because the Moscow Region team cannot beat its 30 regulation-time wins this season. SKA also moves ahead of Dynamo Moscow into second place in the Western Conference: oddly, if the playoffs were to start tomorrow, that would mean the familiar post-season battle between SKA and CSKA would take place in the first round, rather than the more usual Conference final.
As for the game, it took some time for the home team to break down a resilient if limited opponent. Kunlun defended in deep in the first period, restricting the host to shots from the perimeter for long periods. Indeed, the visitor may feel it created enough breakaway opportunities to grab a lead before the intermission, but goalie Pavel Moisevich was equal to the danger.
Early in the second, SKA grabbed a couple of quick goals to take control of the action. Marat Khairullin converted his team’s third power play of the night to open the scoring in the 22nd minute. Then, a couple of minutes later, Borna Rendulic made it 2-0.
Midway through the third period, the teams traded goals. Valentin Zykov extended SKA’s lead, but Red Star quickly got a consolation effort thanks to Tyler Graovac. It finished 3-1, with SKA improving to four wins from the last five while Red Star failed to build on its 5-2 victory in Minsk.
Gone in 17 seconds
Spartak Moscow 1 Avangard Omsk 3 (0-1, 1-0, 0-2)
Two goals in seventeen seconds lifted the Hawks past Spartak. The quickfire pair from Ivan Telegin and Reid Boucher makes its seven successive victories for Avangard; along with Severstal, that’s the best run of form in the league right now.
Avangard jumped into an early lead in this one thanks to Nikita Kholodilin. Damir Sharipzyanov chipped the puck deep into Spartak territory, where Telegin won possession on the boards and sent a no-look feed back to the slot. Kholodilin's arrival was perfectly timed and he fired past Dmitry Nikolayev to open the scoring in the fifth minute.
Spartak responded strongly and might have drawn level. However, two big chances rebounded back off the piping. First Yegor Chezganov, then Alexander Belyayev beat Pavel Khomchenko but could not find the back of the net as the Hawks took a lead to the first intermission.
The tying goal arrived at the start of the second. Yegor Filin got the puck behind the net and tried to fire it to the slot. It bounced off Sharipzyanov and dropped kindly for Filin, who was able to surge into a shooting position and beat Khomchenko at last.
Almost immediately, Avangard had a couple of big chances, with Nikolai Prokhorkin going close following a rebound and Damir Zhafyarov flying down the left wing but firing narrowly wide of Nikolayev’s net. However, there was no further scoring in that middle stanza.
After the intermission, Spartak got the first power play of the game when Sharipzyanov sat for tripping. The Red-and-Whites had chances, with Nikolai Goldobin forcing a big save out of Khomchenko and Ansel Galimov bustling on the wraparound, but there was no goal.
Once back at equal strength, Avangard flexed its muscles and delivered a knock-out blow in the 54th minute. A swift counterattack saw Igor Martynov release Ivan Nikolishin down the left. In turn, he spotted Telegin on the opposite flank and swung the puck across for his team-mate to fire a one-timer that beat Nikolayev to the short side. Then, 17 seconds later, Tomas Jurco pounced on a loose puck to set up Boucher for the 3-1 goal. The Canadian further extends his club scoring record for the season and moves to 36 goals, 12 behind Sergei Mozyakin’s all-time KHL record for a single regular season.
