Motormen win battle of the East, Butsayev enjoys successful start. September 26

Avtomobilist defeated Sibir in Thursday’s big game, winning the battle of the Eastern leaders and joining Lokomotiv on 15 points at the top of the overall standings. At the other end, Barys won its first game under new head coach Vyacheslav Butsayev and moved ahead of HC Sochi thanks to a 1-0 verdict. For only the second time in KHL history a player scored twice on the same penalty kill: Kirill Slepets’ double took Amur past Vityaz. Torpedo came from 0-2 to win 4-2 at Admiral and the late game saw Dinamo Minsk win at Kunlun Red Star.

Shorthanded double secures first home win for Amur

Amur Khabarovsk 3 Vityaz Moscow Region 2 (1-1, 2-0, 0-1)

After three losses in Khabarovsk, the Tigers finally secured a first home success of the season against Vityaz. In previous games, Amur’s performance levels were good but Andrei Martemyanov’s team struggled to score goals. The loss of forward Vladislav Barulin to injury brought Vyacheslav Gretsky back into the team as one of three changes.

Thursday’s opposition came from Vityaz, a team that is playing some attractive hockey but hasn’t always got the results it would have wanted. Defensively, things have been difficult: today Dean Stewart returned on the blue line, and fellow import Nicholas Baptiste was also back in action.

Amur made the better start and, unlike the game against CSKA, managed to translate that into a concrete advantage. First, it was numerical: a five-on-three power play. Then it was an opening goal, fired home by Alexander Shchemerov on his return to the team. There might have been more, but Kirill Slepets missed a chance on a solo rush.

Gradually Vityaz came into the game and with Ivan Vorobyov pulling the strings the visitor began to pose some questions for Dmitry Lozebnikov in the home net. That eventually saw Vorobyov set up Baptiste for a tying goal in the 15th minute.

The second period saw Amur twice fail to score on the power play, only to take control of the game on the penalty kill. Late in the frame Cam Lee set for holding and while he was in the box, Slepets potted two shorthanded goals. The first came eight seconds into the penalty when he grabbed possession and headed off to the races, beating Dorozhko. A minute later, Slepets struck again, finishing off a swift counterattack. It’s the first time since 2010 that a player has scored two shorthanded goals on the same PK; Amur legend Dmitry Tarasov achieved that feat while playing for Sibir.

Vityaz did not give up, and the lively Vorobyov pulled a goal back early in the third. But that was as close as the visitor got. Andrei Chivilyov was closest to tying the game, but he skewed his shot across the front of the net. At the other end, Alex Galchenyuk hit the post when he could have sealed the win for Amur. In the end, the Tigers played out the closing minutes sensibly and secured a 3-2 win.

Torpedo rallies to sink Sailors

Admiral Vladivostok 2 Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod 4 (1-0, 1-2, 0-2)

After a four-game winning streak pushed Admiral into the top four in the Eastern Conference, the Sailors hit stormy waters against Torpedo. Initially looked like plain sailing for the home team as it opened a 2-0 lead. But the visitor, buoyed by victory at Kunlun Red Star in its previous game, recovered well to secure a 4-2 verdict.

The win over KRS came at a cost: defenseman Slava Voynov was injured and Markus Phillips took his place in the first pair. Keaton Thompson returned to the line-up after missing two games, while on offense Vasily Atanasov missed out and Dmitry Kagarlitsky took his place on the second line.

Admiral got ahead in the fifth minute when it converted the first power play of the game. It was a goal straight from the playbook: Daniil Gutik’s cross-ice pass, Pavel Shen firing the puck to the slot and Yegor Petukhov steering it home for his sixth goal of the season.

After that, the home team ran into penalty trouble of its own and had to kill three minors in quick succession. The Sailors blocked 16 shots to help Andrei Mishurov get to the intermission without allowing a goal.

The second stanza began with a second Amur goal. This time, Gutik was the scorer, converting a great Stepan Starkov feed from behind the net. However, the middle frame saw Torpedo battle back into the game thanks to two goals from Kirill Voronin. First he reduced the deficit with some good reactions in front of Mishurov’s net, then he tied it up with a short-handed goal in the 37th minute.

The third period saw Admiral dominate, but the home team could not score. Torpedo was limited to just three shots on target, but got big returns on that effort. Maxim Letunov thought he’d put the visitor in front midway through the session, but a bench challenge saw that one whistled off for interference on Mishurov. Three minutes later, Torpedo got the lead when Dmitry Breus fired home a point shot. Kagarlitsky’s assist secured his first point since joining the club in the summer. Nikita Artamonov wrapped up the win with a 55th-minute strike before Ivan Kulbakov’s late save robbed Gutik of a certain goal and saw Torpedo to victory.

Avto halts Sibir’s surge

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

Avtomobilist won the leadership battle in the East, rattling in four unanswered goals in the second period to snap Sibir’s six-game winning streak. It was the Motormen’s second win of the season against Sibir; at the start of the campaign in Yekaterinburg, a dismal performance left Sibir captain Sergei Shirokov blasting his team-mates’ inadequacies during a heavy loss.

Since then, Sibir and Shirokov have hit form. The forward extended his productive streak to six games today, while the team’s sudden switch from winless to unstoppable saw it shoot up the table from bottom to top. Avto, though, has stayed consistent so far this campaign and promised a tough test in Novosibirsk.

The first period was goalless. Avto had a couple of power play chances, but the closest we came to a goal was a Yegor Alanov shot against the post late in the opening frame.

After the intermission, the goals came thick and fast – and all for the visitor. Maxim Denezhkin opened the scoring with his first of the season in the 22nd minute. More followed: midway through the session, Curtis Valk doubled the lead with a redirect on Nick Ebert’s shot. Then, after Taylor Beck missed a chance to score on his former club, Vladimir Kuznetsov and Brooks Macek added two late tallies to make it 4-0 at the second intermission.

It always looked like a tall order for Sibir to recover from this. The home team managed something of a fightback, twice scoring during five-on-three power plays. Vladimir Butuzov found the net for the third game in a row before Shirokov extended his own streak, but it was all too late to save the game.

Butsayev inspires Barys to win

Barys Astana 1 HC Sochi 0 (1-0, 0-0, 0-0)

Vyacheslav Butsayev celebrated victory in his first game as Barys head coach. A Wade Allison goal midway through the first period was enough to defeat Sochi, with goalie Nikita Boyarkin making 26 saves to backstop his team’s first regulation-time win of the season.

The result also sends Sochi to the foot of the overall KHL standings. The Leopards currently have four points; Barys joins Lada on five after its second win of the campaign.

Success has been a long time in coming. A run of seven losses in the first eight games cost head coach David Nemirovsky his job at Barys. Nemirovsky was only appointed in the summer, but pre-season preparations were disrupted by Team Kazakhstan’s Olympic qualification program and the team never looked like it bore the head coach’s stamp. He left his post earlier this week and interim head coach Evgeny Korolyov was critical of several players following defeat in his sole game in charge against Dynamo Moscow.

Butsayev’s arrival seemed to galvanize his new charges. In the early stages, Barys did not allow a single shot at Boyarkin. By the time the home goalie was called into action, he was already defending a lead after Allison converted the rebound from Alikhan Omirbekov’s effort.

It wasn’t until the second period that Sochi was able to bring its offense into the game consistently, but Boyarkin was in no mood to let the lead slip away. He kept his goal intact, repelling a late storm from the visitor to secure his first KHL shut-out in exactly two years.

Dragons fall to fourth straight loss

Kunlun Red Star 1 Dinamo Minsk 3 (0-1, 1-2, 0-0)

Dinamo rolled to a fourth win in five games, condemning Red Star to a fourth consecutive loss in the process. The Bison arrived in Mytishchi following a 3-1 win over Severstal and repeated that scoreline against Kunlun.

A lively first period began with both teams picking up penalties. As things settled down a little, chances began to emerge. Vadim Shipachyov failed to control the puck when well placed in front of Jeremy Smith’s net, before Brandon Yip’s redirect forced Andrei Tikhomirov into a sharp save. Later, Rourke Chartier was close to putting the home team ahead, but the opening goal arrived late in the frame when Vitaly Pinchuk converted a power play.

Kunlun tied it up 23 seconds into the middle frame when Nail Yakupov scored his fifth of the season. But Dinamo was undaunted. Vadim Moroz and Roman Gorbunov scored two goals in three minutes to open a 3-1 lead before the midway point.

That proved to be the end of the scoring. Dinamo closed out the game effectively and moves to 10 points for the season.