Big fightbacks for SKA, Avangard; Amur shocks Magnitka. March 3 playoffs

There was a huge battle in St. Petersburg, where SKA recovered from 0-2 to force overtime at home to Torpedo. After 33 minutes of the extras, Vasily Glotov completed the comeback to tie the series for the home team. Avangard also had to fight back from 0-2 at home to Lada, and Ivan Nikoloshin’s OT winner gave the Hawks a 2-0 lead in the series. In an opening round full of surprises, Amur provided the latest upset with a 3-2 win at Eastern top seed Metallurg. That series is tied as the action moves to Khabarovsk next week.

Hawks fight back to claim second win

Avangard Omsk 3 Lada Togliatti 2 OT (0-0, 0-2, 2-0, 1-0)

Avangard leads the series 2-0

After an emphatic 5-1 victory in its opening game, Avangard had a tougher time against Lada in the second of the series. The Motormen raced into a 2-0 lead before the Hawks clawed their way back into contention, forcing the first overtime of this year’s playoffs. In the extras, Ivan Nikolishin scored the winning goal after seven minutes to send the action to Togliatti with Avangard in control.

Lada made changes in response to Friday’s heavy loss. Defensemen Maxim Mineyev and Mislav Rosandic joined the line-up, as did forwards Nikita Popugayev and Artyom Ivanyuzhenkov. Avangard was unchanged.

The visitor made the better start to the game, approaching this battle in combative mood. Adopting a high press, Lada was able to keep play in front of Pavel Khomchenko’s net and generated plenty of opportunities. However, realization was an issue due to both poor finishing and solid defense.

Gradually, Avangard steered the play away from its own territory and started putting together pressure of its own. Now it was Lada’s turn to defend stoutly, not least when the home team got the first power play of the game. The opening frame finished goalless and both teams had reason to be encouraged by what they had produced.

At the start of the second period, Avangard had a spell of sustained pressure that saw Vladislav Podyapolsky produce a fine save to deny Reid Boucher. Then, in the sixth minute, Lada got in front when Andrei Altybarmakyan profitted from a defensive error to set up Popugayev for the opener. It wasn’t long before Lada got a power play and Yegor Babenko doubled the lead off Scott Kosmachuk’s feed.

Avangard looked for a quick response and missed several presentable chances, while Lada continued to defend in depth and dictate much of the play.

For a long time, Avangard’s attacks bounced harmlessly off the visitor’s defensive wall. However, as the pressure mounted, errors began to creep into Lada’s play. Eventually, this helped Tomas Jurco halve the deficit in the 52^nd minute. Once the breakthrough was made, it took 46 seconds for the home team to tie the game: Vladimir Tkachyov dished off the puck for Damir Sharipzyanov and the defenseman’s point shot found the target. Roared on by the home crowd, the Hawks went for the kill. However, Lada dug in and managed to take some of the edge out of the game in the closing minutes of regulation.

The extras saw Avangard pile forward in search of a winner. Each shift seemed to take more out of the visitor until Nikolishin settled the outcome.

Tigers roar back to tie series

Metallurg Magnitogorsk 2 Amur Khabarovsk 3 (1-1, 0-2, 1-0)

Series tied at 1-1

If Metallurg thought that winning the opening game of this series would deflate Amur, this game was an immediate reality check. A hard-fought game one victory was followed by an equally competitive clash on Sunday – and this time, the Tigers came out on top to tie up the contest as the action transfers to Khabarovsk.

Neither head coach made big changes for this encounter: Metallurg’s Andrei Razin replaced Maxim Mukhametov with Arkhip Nekolenko; Amur’s Andrei Martemyanov utilized Vyacheslav Gretsky in place of Kirill Panyukov.

Metallurg got an early chance on the power play, but failed to make much of Yefim Gurkin’s foul. Instead, Amur was the first to see a real scoring chance when a freakish bounce wrongfooted Ilya Nabokov only for his team-mates to clear the danger. At the other end, another deflection led to the opening goal when Igor Geraskin’s attempted feed to the back door bounced off Ivan Mishchenko’s skate and into his own net. However, the Tigers recovered to level the scores just before the intermission thanks to Alexander Khokhlachyov.

Magnitka’s power play was a cause for concern. In the first period, it came up blank on four occasions (one of which carried over to the start of the second). In the 24^th minute, attempt number five also produced nothing, despite a time out from Razin to remind his players of the system. After allowing a counterattack, Metallurg lost its man advantage when Danila Yurov was forced into a foul.

At equal strength – be it four-on-four or five-on-five – Amur did a good job of marshalling Metallurg’s threat. The home team began to shuffle its lines, but could not unlock the visiting defense. Then, in the 35^th minute, came a dramatic shift in the balance of play as the Tigers grabbed two goals in 15 seconds. Dmitry Shevchenko broke the deadlock, then a misplaced pass from Makar Khabarov invited Yegor Korshkov to make it 3-1.

Razin continued to seek a more potent attacking combination, promoting Mukhametov to the first line after 40 minutes of sitting on the bench. However, the home offense still appeared undercooked, although Nikita Mikhailis missed a great chance after getting clean through on Igor Bobkov. It wasn’t until the dying moments, with Nabokov already sacrificed for a sixth skater, that Metallurg got on the scoreboard again. However, Luke Johnson’s effort was too late to save the game and Amur can head home with the series level.

Glotov completes epic SKA fightback

SKA St. Petersburg 3 Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod 2 OT (0-0, 1-2, 1-0, 0-0, 1-0)

Series tied at 1-1

Torpedo’s 5-2 win in the opening game of this series was probably the biggest shock of an unpredictable start to this season’s playoffs. Today, Igor Larionov’s team was within a couple of minutes of taking a 2-0 lead in the series, only to allow a late equalizer and eventually fall in overtime.

After Friday’s opening loss, Roman Rotenberg made changes. Defenseman Mikhail Pashnin returned after a three-game absence, while the top line was reshaped and comprised Arseny Gritsyuk, Mikhail Vorobyov and Sergei Tolchinsky.

Pashnin was the closest to breaking the deadlock in the first period. After six minutes, his shot from wide on the left clattered into the post with Ivan Kulbakov beaten. Torpedo survived that scare and coped diligently with further SKA pressure to ensure that the opening stanza ended goalless.

At the start of the second, the home team ran into penalty trouble. With Marat Khairullin in the box, Denis Yan wasted a glorious chance when he hit the bar with the goal at his mercy. Then, just after killing Zakhar Bardakov’s penalty, SKA fell behind. Nikolai Kovalenko boldly advanced to the slot and after Nikita Serebryakov stopped his shot, Maxim Letunov was on hand to put away the rebound.

That inspired Torpedo and moments later Sergei Goncharuk had a one-on-one against the SKA goalie. This time, Serebryakov came out on top, and a couple of minutes later he also thwarted Nikita Shavin’s solo rush as the visitor killed a penalty on Kovalenko.

In the 36^th minute, another Torpedo power play brought a second goal. Just 10 seconds after Pashnin sat for interference, Kovalenko set up Goncharuk in the circle and his wrister flew past Serebryakov to make it 2-0.

SKA needed a quick response, and Tolchinsky supplied it. He pulled one back in the 39^th minute after Serebryakov’s save triggered a two-on-one counter. Tolchinsky didn’t need Vasily Glotov’s help, taking responsibility himself and scoring from the right-hand circle. And there was more drama on the hooter when Vorobyov beat Kulbakov and thought he’d tied the game. However, the officials ruled that his shot crossed the line after the hooter and Torpedo took the lead into the third period.

The home team began that frame on the power play, but could not find a tying goal with the man advantage. Instead, Maxim Fedotov’s error almost handed Kovalenko a third goal for Torpedo. Then Glotov and Tolchinsky set off for another odd-man rush, only for Kulbakov to stop Glotov’s one-timer and preserve Torpedo’s lead.

That one-goal advantage remained intact until late on. Torpedo’s defense had almost completed its task when Kirill Voronin tripped Emil Galimov in the 57^th minute. Rotenberg called a time-out, benched Serebryakov and watched his six men tie the game when Glotov crashed the net and Vorobyov was quickest to react to the rebound.

The first period of overtime saw power plays for both teams but no winning goal. SKA’s Alex Galchenyuk had the puck in the net in the 75^th minute, but his close-range effort came after the whistle and, for the second time in the game, a home goal did not count.

In the second additional stanza, SKA was even more dominant. The home team outshot Torpedo 12-3 (28-10 for the whole of OT) and was close to winning in the 88^th minute when Gritsyuk went around the net to set up Glotov with time and space in front of Kulbakov’s net. The visiting goalie kept his team in the game on that occasion, but Glotov was not finished. Five minutes later he got beyond Arseny Varlakov and fired a shot under Bogdan Konyushkov’s outstretched stick and beyond the goalie’s reach to settle the longest game of post season so far.