SKA stumbles again, Spartak still fires blanks. March 19 playoffs
Avtomobilist continued to defy the seedings with a second win in St. Petersburg. The Motormen are up 2-0 in that series, with two home games in Yekaterinburg coming up later this week. Metallurg collected a second shut-out win over Spartak to take a 2-0 advantage before the series heads to Moscow on Thursday.
Nabokov stays perfect as Magnitka wins again
Metallurg Magnitogorsk 1 Spartak Moscow 0 (0-0, 0-0, 1-0)
Metallurg leads the series 2-0
Metallurg maintained its mastery of Spartak’s offense, blanking the Red-and-Whites for the second game in a row. This was a much tighter battle than Sunday’s 4-0 stroll, but a solitary strike was enough for the Steelmen to go up 2-0 in the series before the teams reconvene in Moscow on Thursday.
After failing to score in Sunday’s game, Spartak recalled Ilya Kovalchuk. The big-name forward had previously featured just once in post season, an absence that raised more than a few questions in the Russian media as the Red-and-Whites defeated Severstal in the opening round. Today, Kovi linked up with German Rubtsov and Alexander Pashin on the third line. Metallurg, meanwhile, was without Dmitry Silantyev, who starred in the opening game with 2 (1+1) points. Alexander Petunin replaced him.
However, today’s game was settled by goalies, not forwards. Ilya Nabokov made it back-to-back shut-outs with 33 saves, while his opposite number Dmitry Nikolayev stopped 28 shots but was beaten early in the third period. Nabokov now has 77 saves through two games against the regular season’s most dangerous offense. Not a bad showing for a 20-year-old goalie tackling his first playoff appearances this year.
Spartak looked to bounce back from its opening 0-4 loss in this series by stepping up its physical presence. That didn’t start as well as hoped: Ansel Galimov took “in yer face” a bit too literally and picked up a high-sticking penalty inside two minutes. However, once back at full strength the visitor ensured that it put significantly more hits on Metallurg. Kovalchuk’s presence played a part here: his trio of first-period hits led the team. The 40-year-old also thought he had the opening goal midway through the session. With Spartak on the power play, Nabokov collided with team-mate Yegor Yakovlev. The puck went to Kovi wide on the left and as he fired in a shot he was already celebrating a seemingly certain goal as the netminder recovered to get his glove behind the shot.
Nabokov was beaten for real right at the end of the session when Dmitry Vishnevsky put a rebound into the net. However, a video review determined that the hooter had already sounded and the game remained goalless.
The second period saw Metallurg twice get a five-on-three power play. However, neither of these golden opportunities generated the kind of threat that Andrei Razin would have wanted. Aside from a couple of efforts from Danila Yurov, the two passages of play produced little to distress Nikolayev. In between, Kovalchuk’s combative approach sparked a minor scuffle: a big hit on Luke Johnson was followed with some pushing and shoving involving Yurov.
That kind of arm wrestle was characteristic of the entire game. There were relatively few big scoring chances for either team, and the opening goal had to wait until the 46th minute. The breakthrough went to Yegor Korobkin, who finished off an extended period of pressure on Nikolayev’s net.
Korobkin’s goal was enough to win the game. Having worked out how to subdue Spartak’s forwards in the opening game, Metallurg repeated that trick here to close out the final stages. The visitor found chances at a premium, even after sacrificing the goalie for a sixth skater, and Nabokov mopped up everything that came his way to backstop a second successive victory.
Motormen claim second win over SKA
SKA St. Petersburg 1 Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg 3 (0-0, 0-2, 1-1)
Avtomobilist leads the series 2-0
Avtomobilist withstood a third-period surge to hold off SKA and record back-to-back wins in Petersburg. The home team dominated the final frame as it tried to recover from 0-2 and save the game. However, despite pulling a goal back early in the session it could not find another way past Evgeny Alikin and a defensive error late on set up the knock-out blow for the visitor.
The biggest moments of the goalless first period came after Danil Romantsev took the first penalty of the game. First, Avtomobilist went close to grabbing a shorthanded goal when Stepan Khripunov broke away and fired a shot against Nikita Serebryakov’s post. At the other end, SKA also dinged the piping when defenseman Sergei Sapego let fly from the blue line.
Special teams proved even more influential the second stanza. Five minutes in, SKA got another power play when Anatoly Golyshev sat for tripping. However, after going close to a shorty in the first period, Avtomobilist got one this time. Mikhail Vorobyov skated into the visitor’s zone but lost the puck. Alexei Byvaltsev pounced, racing away to get one-on-one with Serebryakov and open the scoring with an early shot.
SKA was unable even to complete the rest of its PP, with Arseny Gritsyuk getting his team’s first penalty of the night. In keeping with the game’s general theme, that led to a shorthanded breakaway for the home team, but Zakhar Bardakov was unable to convert the chance. Gritsyuk’s foul started a trend that saw the home team repeatedly infringing as the session progressed. Matters reached crisis point when Vasily Glotov and Artyom Zemchyonok handed Avto a five-on-three advantage and Stephane Da Costa doubled the lead. The Frenchman’s only previous playoff outing came in a 0-5 loss against Ak Bars; today he had a better time of it and doubled the Motormen’s lead after exchanging passes with Curtis Valk and setting himself for a wrister from between the hash marks.
That gave the visitor a 2-0 lead going into the third period. In the opening game of the series, SKA rallied from 0-2 but failed to ride that momentum to victory. Today, the home team started the third period with a storm of offense. Sergei Tolchinsky spurned a great chance to reduce the arrears when he had the freedom of the Avtomobilist zone in the 43rd minute, but could only produce a shot that Alikin pushed aside with his blocker.
The shots kept raining in, and a couple of minutes later, Alikin was beaten at last. Marat Khairullin fired the puck in from the right and Glotov forced the puck home at the second attempt, even as he fell to the ice on the slot.
Lifted by that goal, SKA continued to attack with renewed vigor. Not even a penalty for Bardakov in the 51st minute could offer the visitor much respite: SKA’s four skaters continued to fly at the opposition, making it hard for Avtomobilist to get the puck away from its zone. That high intensity effort, so late in the game, frustrated the power play but drained plenty of energy from SKA’s players.
Nonetheless, as soon as the home team returned to full strength it came agonizingly close to tying the game. A face-off win on the left-hand side set up Khairullin for an effort that slammed into the crossbar with Alikin beaten.
However, the next big moment proved decisive for Avto. Young defenseman Arseny Koromyslov, playing only his second game for SKA, got caught in possession by Andrei Obidin behind the net. Obidin fired the puck into the path of the onrushing Khripunov, who calmly slotted it past Serebryakov to make it 3-1 with 4:23 left on the clock. Koromyslov’s error ultimately sank SKA’s hopes in this game – and might prove a decisive moment in the whole series. The teams head to Yekaterinburg with Avtomobilist up 2-0 and firmly in the driving seat.
