Grebyonkin sinks former colleagues as Metallurg marches on. March 11 playoffs
Eastern conference top seed Metallurg booked its passage into the second round with victory over Amur in game six. Once again, though, it was a tough battle against an opponent that finished eighth in regular season.
Amur Khabarovsk 2 Metallurg Magnitogorsk 3 OT (0-1, 1-0, 1-1, 0-1)
Metallurg wins the series 4-2
Nikita Grebyonkin, who spent last season on loan at Amur and did well enough to be named KHL rookie of the year, scored the first playoff goal of his career to snap a 2-2 tie and wrap up the series.
Magnitka thought it had the job done in regulation when Igor Geraskin put the visitor up 2-1 with three minutes to play. However, Amur hit back to tie the game late on and force overtime.
The extras did not take long. In the third minute of overtime, Luke Johnson chased back into center ice to steal possession from Vyacheslav Gretsky. Johnson moved over the blue line and dropped the puck off for Grebyokin at the point. Grebyonkin came forward to the top of the circle and squeezed his shot around Yakov Rylov and over Igor Bobkov’s shoulder to decide the outcome.
There was an action-packed start to this game, with Amur generating two good opportunities on the counterattack inside the first three minutes. Alexander Khokhlachyov hit the crossbar, then Alexander Bryntsev tested Ilya Nabokov on the next shift.
Metallurg responded with a pacey attack of its own, and then took the lead in the sixth minute. Alexei Maklyukov sent Arkhip Nekolenko racing away down the right wing and he cut inside before shooting past Bobkov.
Subsequently, Amur put in the hard work to prevent Metallurg from building on its lead. During the first period the home team blocked eight shots and produced 17 hits. However, despite a decent chance for Barulin shortly after the goal, the Tigers could not tie the game before the intermission.
In the second period, the teams continued to trade swift counterattacks in an end-to-end game. There could have been goals at either end, but the two goalies did well until the 39th minute when Dmitry Shevchenko fired the home team level off an assist from Kirill Slepets.
That lifted Amur, and the Tigers made a bright start to the third period. Helped by an early power play, they put pressure on Nabokov’s net. Good work from Jan Drozg behind the net gave Khokhlachyov another chance to test the visiting goalie, then Slepets got away from his marker and played a dangerous feed to the slot only for the defense to get back and prevent Khokhlachyov from finishing it off.
Gradually, though, Metallurg came back to the ascendancy. The visitor had a great chance to get in front midway through the frame when Grebyonkin went around the net and Geraskin shot against the post.
Geraskin went one better in the 57th minute, grabbing the goal that seemed to have won the game and the series for his team. Another quick counterattack saw Pavel Akolzin’s pass send Geraskin over the blue line. The former Severstal man bore down on goal and fired over Bobkov’s blocker to make it 2-1.
Amur’s season was on the line, with just 3:27 remaining to keep the game and series alive. With two minutes left, and lining up an attacking face-off, Andrei Martemyanov called a time-out and benched Bobkov for an extra skater. Eight seconds later, the scores were level: Shevchenko went deep into the zone, turned and fired the puck to the slot for Alex Broadhurst to tie the game in dramatic fashion.
That wasn’t quite enough to save the Tigers, though. Grebyonkin’s OT winner sends Metallurg through to the next round. Amur, though, emerge with credit from a series that saw four out of six games decided by a single goal.
