SKA’s forward cut loose to win at Avto. March 23 playoffs
SKA kept its season alive with victory in Yekaterinburg. However, despite today’s 2-4 loss, Avtomobilist still leads the series 3-1 and can finish the job when the teams meet in St. Petersburg next week. Saturday’s other scheduled game between Spartak and Metallurg was postponed to March 26 following Friday night’s terrorist attack on a concert hall in Moscow. The Avangard vs Lokomotiv game, scheduled to take place in Omsk tomorrow, is also postponed until March 26.
Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg 2 SKA St. Petersburg 5 (0-2, 1-1, 1-2)
Avtomobilist leads the series 3-1
SKA kept this series alive, finally getting its offense together to defeat Avtomobilist. The changes to the line-up paid off, with all five goals going to players who were recalled to the team or placed on a new line by the Petersburg management.
In preparation for the last chance saloon, SKA made a raft of changes. Some were relatively small: Vasily Glotov and Marat Khairullin placed on new lines. In addition, though, five players returned to the team after missing Thursday’s overtime loss. Defenseman Maxim Fedotov, whose error led to Avto’s winning goal, was replaced by Nikita Kamalov. On offense, Alex Galchenyuk, Alexander Kadeikin, Stepan Starkov and Svyatoslav Grebenshchikov returned, with Brendan Leipsic, Emil Galimov, Nikolai Polyakov and Andrei Chivilyov making way.
Avtomobilist made just one enforced switch, with defenseman Alexander Sevostyanov stepping in for the injured Jesse Blacker. It was Sevostyanov’s first playoff appearance of the season.
SKA tried to force the early tempo, but after a couple of strong shifts from the visitor, Avtomobilist began to create the bigger chances. Nikita Serebryakov made the first notable save of the game to deny Stepan Khripunov in the sixth minute, but the next attack saw SKA go in front. Glotov got away on the counterattack and although Evgeny Alikin saved the first shot, the visiting forward converted the rebound.
That was a big goal. SKA had not previously opened the scoring in any game in this series. Now, when it needed it most, the Petersburg team had the advantage. And there was more to come when the visitor got its first power play of the afternoon. Arseny Gritsyuk played the puck out from behind the net, Kadeikin fired it to the slot and Galchenyuk steered it home. That was the end of Alikin’s game, bringing Vladimir Galkin to the crease for the first time in this series.
In the second period the teams continued to trade dangerous attacks. Gradually, Avtomobilist began to put more pressure on Serebryakov’s net and the SKA goalie did well to stop Semyon Kizimov’s shot after Andrei Obidin’s hard work on the press forced the defense into an error. A couple of minutes after that, the Motormen got a goal back when Stephane Da Costa scored off the rebound from his own backhand shot.
Soon after that, a penalty for Starkov gave the home team a great chance to tie the scores. Instead, though, Da Costa found himself heading to the box and the momentum was lost. Worse followed: late in the frame, Kamalov celebrated his return to the team with a third goal for SKA to give the visitor some breathing space going into the third period.
The final frame began with penalties for the visitor. Valentin Zykov sat out a minor, then Kamalov took a double minor when his stick caught Sevostyanov in the face. SKA killed those penalties, but couldn’t hold on for long once back at full strength. Anatoly Golyshev’s rush down the wing saw him sling in a shot from a dead angle. The puck bounced around the crease and dropped for Alexei Makeyev to turn it in, reawakening home hopes of settling the series today.
Shortly after that, Brooks Macek saw a good chance denied by Serebryakov. Then the influential Obidin again fashioned a promising opening, only for SKA’s goalie to get behind Sevostyanov’s attempt. As time ticked down, Avtomobilist was forced to remove Galkin from his net – and immediately paid the price. Marat Khairullin helped himself to two empty-net goals in the closing seconds to ensure that the series would go back to Petersburg with SKA buoyed by a big win.
