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SKA survives fightback, Dynamo blows lead. February 4 round-up
It was all about comebacks at the top of the Western Conference. SKA saw a comfortable 4-0 lead eroded in Ufa before escaping with a 4-3 verdict that keeps it atop the standings. Lokomotiv, meanwhile, remains right behind after rallying from 0-3 to beat Dynamo in a shoot-out. Across Moscow, there was another shoot-out at CSKA with Avtomobilist coming out on top after a 4-4 tie. Amur boosted its playoff hopes with an OT success at Barys, while Dinamo Minsk is close to confirming its place following a big win over Admiral. There were also wins for Kunlun Red Star and Severstal.
Tigers claim vital OT win
Barys Astana 2 Amur Khabarovsk 3 OT (1-0, 0-1, 1-1, 0-1)
Amur moved to within a point of the playoff places thanks to an overtime win in Astana. For Barys, this was a seventh successive loss. The Kazakhs remain at the foot of the Eastern Conference standings, but improved slightly. This was the first point that Barys won in that skid, and the home team scored twice in a game for the first time in five attempts.
Barys got in front on a fifth-minute power play goal from the experienced Roman Starchenko. Although the Tigers looked decent at equal strength, hopes of tying the game in the opening session were hampered by further penalties.
After the break Amur stayed out of the box and began to assume more control of the play. A tying goal arrived in the 27th minute, Alex Broadhurst scoring after a great pass from Alexander Khokhlachyov.
The teams traded goals in the third, with Jan Drozg putting Amur ahead only for Arkady Shestakov to tie the scores a couple of minutes later. Both teams looked for a winner in regulation, but the game remained locked at 2-2 and the action moved into overtime.
Those extras lasted just 16 seconds: that was long enough for Igor Bobkov to get to the bench and Amur to play four-on-three. The extra man worked out, and Vladislav Barulin potted the winning goal.
Dragons beat Vityaz for the second time this week
Vityaz Moscow Region 2 Kunlun Red Star 4 (1-1, 1-2, 0-1)
Vityaz ended a two-game goal drought but could not find the win that would have lifted it off the foot of the KHL standings. Luke Lockhart scored twice on debutant goalie Daniil Chechelev before Tyler Graovac potted the winner to make it four points in two games for him.
Before all that, Vityaz opened the scoring midway through the first period. A defensive breakdown from the Dragons enabled Scott Wilson to find the net. It was Vityaz’s first goal in 145:03, which included a 0-2 loss against this opponent earlier in the week.
The home team was good value for its lead after dominating the first period, but could not hold the advantage for long. Within three minutes, Lockhart tied it up and even though the shot count was 16-5 in the host’s favor, the scores were level at the break.
After the intermission, Lockhart struck again to give Red Star the lead. However, a minute later Igor Ugolnikov tied it at 2-2. Although the game produced a steady string of penalties – 22 minutes between the two teams in total – there was only one power play goal. It came in the 29th minute and went to Graovac.
Moreover, that proved to be decisive. After a high-scoring start to the game, Red Star began to play more measured hockey. The gung-ho attacking play of the early stages was gone; solid defense was the order of the latter half of the action. Frustrated, Vityaz could not score and was forced into withdrawing Chechelev in the closing stages. His departure led only to an empty-net goal for Tyler Wong as the visitor claimed the verdict.
Ufa's fightback falls short
Salavat Yulaev Ufa 3 SKA St. Petersburg 4 (0-2, 0-2, 3-0)
SKA had to dig deep to hold off a third-period fightback that saw a comfortable 4-0 lead shaved to a single-goal margin by the end of the game. The win preserves the visitor’s position at the top of the Western Conference, while Salavat Yulaev remains third in the East.
The first period was a hard-fought battle. There were shades of playoff hockey in the way the two teams contested for every inch of the ice, but special teams made the difference. SKA converted both its power play chances to open a two-goal lead. First Valentin Zykov tucked away a rebound off the boards, then Vasily Glotov unleashed a powerful, accurate wrister to beat former SKA netminder Alexander Samonov.
In the second stanza, Salavat Yulaev’s power play failed to fire. Worse, when Sergei Tolchinsky got out of the box, he jumped straight onto a rush and added a third goal for the visitor. Then Mikhal Vorobyov made it 4-0 a couple of minutes later an Samonov left the game to make way for Ilya Ezhov.
The game seemed done. However, Viktor Kozlov found a way to inspire his team in the second intermission and the final frame saw Ufa launch a bold fightback. Alexander Sharov got his team on the board with a power play goal, then he potted his second of the night with a redirect on a Nicholas Meloche shot. When Dinar Khafizullin scored a third goal for the home team, there were still eight minutes to play. Salavat Yulaev had a great chance to save the game but SKA managed to steady itself and close out a win that proved far tighter than seemed likely after 40 minutes.
Severstal hands Torpedo a fifth straight loss
Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod 2 Severstal Cherepovets 3 (1-1, 1-0, 0-2)
Severstal came from behind late in the third period to get the verdict over Torpedo. The result closes the gap between the teams to two points as they jockey for position ahead of the playoffs. It also keeps the momentum moving in the Steelmen’s favor: Torpedo suffered a fifth straight loss here.
Yet this game might have finished very differently. The home team led twice, and remained in front until the 55th minute. Vladislav Firstov broke the deadlock early, scoring after he found a generous amount of space following an attacking face-off. Danil Aimurzin quickly tied the game, but the second stanza saw Torpedo get on top.
Firstov had a good chance to score his second of the game right at the start of the session, before Severstal began to generate opportunities of its own. However, the breakthrough went to the home team when Mark Barberio gifted the puck to Kirill Voronin. He set up Yegor Vinogradov, who took full advantage to make it 2-1.
The teams continued to trade chances at the start of the third period. However, as time went on, Severstal’s offense appeared more dangerous. Ivan Kulbakov had to work hard in the Torpedo net to protect his team’s advantage, while at the other end Sergei Goncharuk might have made the game safe on a couple of occasions.
After failing to convert several good chances, Severstal tied it up in the 56th minute with a surprisingly straightforward shot from Yegor Stepanov. As thoughts drifted towards overtime, the visitor snatched the win with 20 seconds on the clock thanks to Ruslan Abrosimov.
Motormen edge a thriller in Moscow
CSKA Moscow 4 Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg 5 SO (2-2, 0-2, 2-0, 0-0, 0-1)
An entertaining game in Moscow saw Avtomobilist halt a run of two defeats. However, the Motormen made hard work of getting the win in a game where it never trailed but struggled to hold onto a lead.
The pattern was established in the first period: twice, the visitor went ahead only for CSKA to respond quickly. Danil Romantsev opened the scoring on 5:18, but within two minutes Anton Slepyshev tied it up. Midway through the session, that sequence repeated itself, with Sergei Shirokov and Tahir Mingachyov claiming the goals. It was 2-2 at the first intermission.
The second stanza belonged to the Avtomobilist power play. Stephane Da Costa converted his team’s first PP of the night in the 21st minute, scoring on one of his former clubs to make it 3-2. Later, CSKA killed a further penalty, but was caught out one again after Nikita Nesterov sat for interference. Alexei Byvaltsev made it 4-2 and, for the first time in the game, CSKA had some breathing space.
However, after losing two one-goal leads, the visitor then blew a two-goal advantage in the third period. Slepyshev’s second of the afternoon brought the Muscovites back into contention, and Pavel Karnaukhov tied the scores with five to play.
Overtime could not separate the teams, but the shoot-out went to Avto. Vladimir Galkin took over from Evgeny Alikin in the visitor’s net and that proved to be the right decision. He stopped all four shots that he faced, while Da Costa and Brooks Macek were on target at the other end to take the win.
Merkley at the double for Dinamo
Dinamo Minsk 4 Admiral Vladivostok 0 (2-0, 0-0, 2-0)
The Bison recovered from two straight defeats to pick up a comfortable win over Admiral and move ever closer to confirming their playoff spot. As things stand, eighth-placed Dinamo is 11 points clear of Kunlun Red Star in ninth and the Chinese club has just 14 more points available this season. Beyond that, Sochi and Vityaz remain a theoretical chance of overtaking the Belarusians, but it would take a frankly unlikely sequence of results to deny Dmitry Kvartalnov’s team a post-season spot.
Today’s game was fairly straightforward for the home team. Admiral hit five on the road in its previous game, but failed to score on Alexei Kolosov today. Dinamo got off to a flying start, opening the scoring after 103 seconds thanks to Daniil Sotishvili, then enjoying a power play after Admiral was called for too many men on 2:35. The visitor killed the penalty, but the momentum was firmly with the home team. A second goal followed in the 14th minute thanks to Vadim Moroz.
Admiral improved after the break. The visitor got some help from a double minor for Pavel Denisov midway through the second period. That led to a goal, but the home bench challenged the play and it was called back for interference on Kolosov in the Dinamo net.
At the start of the third, the home team put the game out of reach. Dinamo began on a power play and it took just nine seconds for Nick Merkley to make it 3-0. Then Libor Sulak went to the box and Merkley again grabbed a quick PP goal.
Loko rallies from 0-3, wins in a shootout
Dynamo Moscow 3 Lokomotiv Yaroslavl 4 SO (3-0, 0-2, 0-1, 0-0, 0-1)
Hockey might be a game of three periods, but this was the proverbial game of two halves. Dynamo opened a three-goal lead in the first period, but midway through the second Lokomotiv began a fightback that took the action into overtime.
The opening frame could hardly have gone better for the home team, and especially Canadian forward Cedric Paquette. He scored a hat-trick, and the Blue-and-Whites led 3-0 at the intermission after limiting Lokomotiv to just four shots at Ilya Konovalov. Each of Paquette’s goals, which came within a six-minute purple patch, was similar: a defenseman fired in a long-range shot and the center did his job on the slot to apply the redirect. Brennan Menell (2) and Kirill Gotovets collected the assists.
If the visitor could do little in the first period, it became more competitive in the second. A power play helped: midway through the session, Vladislav Mikhailov’s absence helped create the space for Martin Gernat to step up from the blue line and rifle a shot past Konovalov to reduce the deficit. The Slovak defenseman turned provider just before the intermission, and Daniil But collected his stretch pass and went clear to make it a one-goal game.
In the third period, the Railwaymen were very much on top, to the point that home head coach Alexei Kudashov felt obliged to call a time-out midway through the session. However, that made little difference: within a couple of minutes the scores were level thanks to a spectacular finish from Stepan Nikulin.
After that, Loko had a couple of good chances to grab a winner in regulation. Dynamo was not completely out of it, and a late effort from Menell might have settled it the other way.
Overtime saw Lokomotiv get a power play in the 63rd minute, but Dynamo held on. For the shoot-out, Kudashov favored Maxim Motorygin in goal. The incoming goalie stopped almost everyone, but Nikulin had his number. On the 9th attempt, needing a goal to keep Lokomotiv in the game, he found the far corner. Then, in sudden death, he wired a wrister to the top shelf to win it for the visitor.
