Groulx enjoys winning feeling. September 6 round-up

Benoit Groulx celebrated his first win in the KHL. Traktor’s new head coach saw his team come from behind to defeat Barys 4-1 in Kazakhstan. Elsewhere, Avangard, Avtomobilist and Kunlun recorded their second successes of the season, while Dynamo got off the mark with a 3-1 victory over Severstal.

Second straight win for Avangard

Avangard Omsk 4 Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk 2 (0-1, 2-0, 2-1)

The Hawks made it two from two at the start of the season, but Neftekhimik posed some questions in Omsk before falling to a 4-2 loss.

Avangard should have been on top right at the start. The home team got a power play after just 29 seconds an Linden Vey somehow failed to put the puck into an empty net soon after. That let-off inspired a counter attack and Roman Abrosimov stunned the host with a shorthanded goal on 63 seconds. The breathless start also saw Ilya Reingardt hit the post, but Avangard could not convert its power play and ended up trailing throughout the first period.

Neftekhimik’s lead owed much to a brave performance from goalie Filipp Dolganov, but he was powerless as Avangard started the second period with a bang. First Mikhail Gulyayev’s wrister from the blue line tied it up: traffic took Dolganov’s eyes away until the puck was past him. Barely a minute later Vey made it 2-1 after corralling a rebound off the back boards.

It was largely one way after that, with Neftekhimik rarely able to clear its lines. Ivan Igumnov spurned a good chance for 3-1 and the Wolves had to kill another penalty to stay in contention.

The seemingly inevitable third goal arrived 50 seconds into the final frame as Alexei Solovyov continued the tradition of action in the opening moments of every stanza. It felt like game over, but Avangard could not quite kill Neftekhimk off. With five to play there was a nasty twist for the home team when Bulat Shafigullin made it 2-3 and ensured a nervy conclusion. The Wolves had already produced one comeback win this season and suddenly saw a way to grab a second. With 90 seconds left, Neftekhimik pulled the goalie but the gamble did not pay off. Vey hit the post before Stanislav Galiyev found the empty net to make the final score 4-2.

Groulx gets first win

Barys Astana 1 Traktor Chelyabinsk 4 (1-0, 0-3, 0-1)

Both these teams suffered losses in their opening games. In response, David Nemirovsky found room for summer signing Kirill Panyukov, while Benoit Groulx shuffled his lines. There was additional flavor to this game for Barys due Viktor Antipin and Anton Burdasov. Both played for Traktor last season, and Burdasov’s departure from his hometown team was abrupt and unexpected.

Barys also saw its final week of pre-season disrupted by Team Kazakhstan’s Olympic Qualification bid, offering some explanation for a slow start to the campaign. Not that there was anything sluggish about Barys at the start of this game. Inside three minutes the home team was ahead after Ruslan Ospanov gathered a rebound off the boards to catch Zach Fucale unawares in the Traktor net.

However, Traktor felt it was unfortunate to lose its opening game in Yekaterinburg and today its offense continued to create chances. This time, though, it did a better job of converting them. The second period saw the visitor turn it all around: Mikhail Kotlyarevsky’s double part Traktor in front, then Dylan Sikura’s pass presented Andrei Svetlakov with a routine finish in front of the Barys net.

Barys started better in the third and had some decent looks on the power play. However, Fucale was on his game and helped his colleagues to their first win of the season. Kotlyarevsky was close to a hat-trick with a powerful shot against the post late on, but Vitaly Kravtsov had the final work with an empty net goal to make it 4-1. That gives new Canadian head coach Groulx his first KHL win after he replaced Alexei Zavarukhin in the summer.

Motormen punish sorry Sibir

Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg 4 Sibir Novosibirsk 0 (2-0, 2-0, 0-0)

The Motormen began with a hard-fought win over Traktor and, after seeing first-choice goalie Evgeny Alikin stop 46 shots, Nikolai Zavarukhin favored understudy Vladimir Galkin for this one. Sibir, beaten 2-1 at Avangard, made one change to its fourth line where Maxim Sushko replaced Sergei Dubakin as center.

Sibir was caught cold right at the start, with Anatoly Golyshev opening the scoring after 43 seconds. Friday traffic meant that many home fans were still on their way into the arena when he potted the rebound from his own shot. Brooks Macek almost doubled the lead on the next shift, but his shot was blocked.

The visitor’s efforts to move forward were routinely repelled in center ice and even before the first commercial break Avtomobilist had its second goal. A face-off win led to a shooting chance for Alexei Byvaltsev and heavy traffic on the ice gave Anton Krasotkin little chance of stopping it. Not only was Sibir down by two, it had yet to produce a shot on goal.

In a flash interview at the intermission, Sergei Shirokov was not happy with his team, complaining that Sibir might allow 10 goals if it carried on in similar vein. The captain’s wrath did not immediately lift his team-mates: the first shift of the second frame saw Avto win a power play, although the home team was unable to press home that advantage. Nonetheless, a third goal wasn’t long in coming. A misplaced Taylor Beck pass helped Nick Ebert race clear to beat Krasotkin with a well-placed shot under the glove.

At last, Sibir began to ask some questions of Galkin. The visitor had 19 shots in the second period, but too many of them were tame attempts from long range. Galkin dealt with the intermittent threat well enough in between and, right on the hooter, Stepan Khripunov’s shot from a dead angle bounced off Krasotkin and into the net for 4-0.

That was Krasotkin’s last action. He left the game at the second intermission and Denis Kostin took his place. Now the story was all about Galkin’s hopes of a shut-out and he secured that after a goalless third period in which Sibir continued to struggle to test the home netminder.

Red Star grabs thrilling win

Kunlun Red Star 5 Admiral Vladivostok 4 OT (1-1, 2-1, 1-2, 1-0)

Two goals from Tomas Jurco and a two-point game from Nail Yakupov brought a second win of the season for Kunlun. Admiral battled back well from 2-4 down in the third and Yegor Petukhov’s hat-trick forced overtime, but the Dragons prevailed in the end.

Red Star opened the scoring midway through the first thanks to an unconventional penalty shot from Jurco. The Slovak forward sauntered forward and blasted a clean shot from between the hash marks to beat Vasily Demchenko for power. Admiral replied quickly, though, with Stepan Starkov tying the game 90 seconds later to make it 1-1 at the first intermission.

Red Star started fast in the second. Colin Campbell and Yakupov both added to their goals on opening day as the Dragons opened a 3-1 lead. Against Dynamo, that was a winning margin for KRS; today, though, Admiral pulled a goal back through Yegor Petukhov’s power play effort as the game approached the midway mark.

In the third, KRS saw a goal disallowed after Austin Wong tipped in a Kyle Wood shot. Then Jurco’s second of the night opened a 4-2 lead in the 53rd minute and seemed to decide the outcome. Petukhov had other ideas, scoring twice in the closing stages to complete a hat-trick and take the game to overtime.

However, the extras did not last long before Yakupov set up Graovac to make it two wins from two for KRS under Mikhail Kravets.

First win of the season for Dynamo

Dynamo Moscow 3 Severstal Cherepovets 1 (1-0, 1-1, 1-0)

Dynamo bounced back from an opening loss to KRS with a solid win against Severstal. The visitor earned a big reputation for its scoring potential last season but struggled against the Moscow defense today. Maxim Motorygin, preferred to import goalie Hunter Miska, was beaten just once as the visitor fell to its first loss of the season.

At the other end, Dynamo’s forwards were not always much more creative. However, the Blue-and-Whites scored two goals either side of the first intermission to take control of the game. Anton Slepyshev potted his first since his arrival from CSKA, opening the scoring on 19:06 with. Jordan Weal was the architect, seizing possession on the right and getting his pass to Slepyshev at the second attempt to set up a one-timer past Alexander Samoilov.

At the start of the second Dynamo got on the power play and Artyom Ilyenko doubled the lead. He redirected a Daniil Pylenkov point shot into the net after Mark Barberio was called for holding Max Comtois.

However, Severstal found a way back into the game in the 33rd minute. Kirill Pilipenko, who began a nomadic career at Dynamo before finally finding a leading role in Cherepovets, sent a reminder to his former club when he tucked away the rebound following Mikhail Ilyin’s diagonal feed.

Dynamo restored its two-goal advantage early in the third. Nikita Korostelyov set for hooking and the home team needed just seven seconds to convert the power play. Nikita Gusev, who scored his team’s only goal in the opening game, set up Brennan Menell for a blast from the blue line.