Shocks keep coming as Avto ousts SKA. March 25 playoffs
A thrilling 5-4 victory in St. Petersburg saw Avtomobilist progress to the 2024 Gagarin Cup semi-finals. The fifth seed from the East joins another outsider, Traktor, in booking a place in the last four. SKA, second in the West, falls days after regular season champion Dynamo Moscow was eliminated from the competition.
Galkin steps up to backstop fightback
SKA St. Petersburg 4 Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg 5 (1-2, 3-1, 0-2)
Avtomobilist wins the series 4-1
Vladimir Galkin came off the bench to stall a rampant SKA attack and backstop Avtomobilist to a series-winning victory in St. Petersburg. The goalie, whose only previous involvement in this year’s playoffs came as an unsuccessful understudy in his team’s two previous losses, entered the game with the home team on a high. But SKA could not score on the new man, and the Motormen steadily clawed back a 2-4 deficit to claim a thrilling 5-4 verdict.
Today’s win puts Yekaterinburg into the last four of the playoffs for the first time. Prior to this season, the club had only once managed to win a series, back in 2018/2019. For SKA, meanwhile, this is the worst result since 2014.
After its series-prolonging win in Yekaterinburg on Saturday, SKA continued with the same line-up. Avtomobilist made a couple of changes, moving Stephane Da Costa to center the third line alongside Anatoly Golyshev and Alexei Makeyev, with Danil Romantsev dropping to the fourth. Defenseman Alexander Sevostyanov was scratched.
That new look third line produced the opening goal for the visitor, with Makeyev breaking the deadlock in the fourth minute. His shot from the edge of the right-hand circle was deflected into the net off Vasily Glotov.
In every previous game of the series, the team that scored first went on to win. Avto looked to build on its bright start and had more scoring chances. However, Nikita Serebryakov halted Brooks Macek’s solo rush then denied Yegor Alexeyev in similar circumstances a minute later.
SKA struggled to create clear scoring chances, but the home team managed to tie the scores midway through the frame. Arseny Gritsyuk took on a stretch pass from Artyom Sergeyev and beat Evgeny Alikin. However, when Sergeyev took the first penalty of the game, Avtomobilist regained the lead with Makeyev scoring his second right before the intermission.
A three-goal blast midway through the second period threatened to turn the game decisively in SKA’s favor. First, a too many men penalty put Avtomobilist under pressure and Alikin had to make a big save to deny Glotov. However, the visiting goalie was powerless when Mikhail Vorobyov blasted home Marat Khairullin’s cross-ice feed. Two minutes later, Khairullin’s interception saw the SKA captain surge down the ice to shoot his team into the lead. The very next shift saw 4-2: from the face-off the puck went back to Nick Ebert, who lost out to Alex Galchenyuk. Gritsyuk was the beneficiary with his second of the game.
That prompted Nikolai Zavarukhin to replace Alikin with Vladimir Galkin. And the second period ended in similar fashion to the first, with Avtomobilist scoring on the power play. This time, Semyon Kizimov sent Alexei Byvaltsev down the left and his shot from the top of the circle made it a one-goal game once again.
After a strong finish to the second period, the Motormen made a fast start to the third. Stepan Khripunov found Nikita Tryamkin on the slot and, after his shot was saved, Ebert followed up with a long-range effort to tie the game 21 seconds in the session.
That set up a tense finale. SKA responded by pushing forward in search of the go-ahead goal, but could not find a way past Galkin and a disciplined Avtomobilist defense. The visitor did not produce much offense, but conjured the breakthrough in the 52nd minute. After winning an attacking face-off to the left of Serebryakov’s net, the puck went back to Denis Barantsev. He found Andrei Obidin in space and the forward skated in from the boards to wire a wrister to the top corner.
That left SKA with a matter of minutes to save its season. The home cause was helped by a couple of Avto penalties in the closing stages, with Sergei Zborovsky firing the puck over the glass in the 56th minute and Kizimov sitting for tripping in the 59th. Roman Rotenberg called a time-out at that point and withdrew Serebryakov to play six-on-four in one desperate last assault. However, the clock was always against the home team, and Avtomobilist held on to take the game and the series.
