Conference leaders slip at home. November 23 round-up

Saturday’s action saw table-toppers Lokomotiv and Traktor beaten on home ice. Kunlun Red Star picked up a 4-1 win in Chelyabinsk, then Torpedo won 3-0 at the overall KHL leader in Yaroslavl. There were high-scoring clashes for Spartak, which came from 1-4 to beat Vityaz in overtime, and Severstal, 7-5 winner over Ak Bars. Neftekhimik defeated Salavat Yulaev 4-2 in the day’s other game.

Red Star wins in Chelyabinsk for first time since 2018

Traktor Chelyabinsk 1 Kunlun Red Star 4 (1-1, 0-0, 0-3)

The Dragons continue to scorch their way across the Eastern Conference summit. After beating second-placed Avtomobilist on Thursday, KRS followed up with victory over leader Traktor on Saturday.

This was Red Star’s first win in Chelyabinsk since 2018, snapping an eight-game losing streak in this building. It was also a third win in a row for Mikhail Kravets’ team, the best run of the season so far.

The visitor started early, opening the scoring with its first shot on target. That came from Martin Lefebvre on the point, with Colin Campbell putting up a screen in front of Zach Fucale. Traktor responded fast and Vladimir Tkachyov converted the first power play of the game to tie the scores in the sixth minute. After that, the home team had the better of the first period but could not add to its tally.

It was a similar story in the second, with visiting goalie Jeremy Smith coming up big to keep the scores level. For all Traktor’s possession, the closest we came to a second goal was when Kunlun’s Jayden Halbgewachs hit the crossbar early in the session.

The third period saw Red Star tighten up on defense, allowing Traktor just five shots in the final frame. At the other end, the visitor showed some clinical finishing to score three times on eight shots. Rourke Chartier made the big breakthrough in the 48th minute, stuffing home the rebound from a Jake Chelios point shot. A few minutes later, new signing Jan Drozg got his first for the club, firing home from the right-hand circle to convert a power play. Spencer Foo sealed the deal with an empty net tally from his own goal line.

From 1-4 to OT win

Spartak Moscow 5 Vityaz Moscow Region 4 OT (0-1, 0-2, 4-1, 1-0)

For the second time this season, these two played out a high-scoring tie. And, for the second time, Spartak got the verdict in regulation. Today, though, Vityaz will feel it should have closed out the game after leading 3-0 at the second intermission and 4-1 with 10 to play. The Red-and-Whites produced a spectacular late fightback and took the verdict on Ivan Morozov’s overtime goal.

Things might have turned out differently if Michal Cajkovsky’s early goal for Spartak had counted. His effort after 39 seconds was whistled off after a successful bench challenge for offside. It wasn’t long before Vityaz got on the power play and scored a legitimate goal after three minutes. Jeremy Roy found the net through traffic, and that was all that separated the teams through 20 minutes.

The second period saw Vityaz looking to pile on the pressure. It wasn’t long before that paid off. In the third minute, Stanislav Yarovoi’s one-timer doubled the lead. The visitor continued to enjoy the lion’s share of the attacking play, and Yarovoi got his second of the game late in the frame to make it 3-0.

By the time Spartak got on the board in the 49th minute, Andrei Loktionov’s goal felt like a consolation effort. That feeling was reinforced 44 seconds later when Ivan Chekhovich struck at the other end to make it 4-1. But the home team produced an incredible fightback in the closing minutes. On 56:53, Pavel Poryadin pulled a goal back. Within a minute, Georgy Ovchinnikov’s first KHL tally made it a one-goal game. Then, five seconds before the hooter, the Muscovites saved the game on Alexander Belyayev’s effort.

In overtime, Vityaz had more of the play. However, the visitor could not reproduce its early scoring power and, after four minutes, Morozov completed a memorable recovery with the winning goal.

41 saves stop Salavat

Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk 4 Salavat Yulaev Ufa 2 (0-1, 3-1, 1-0)

The Wolves turned the formbook upside down with a win at home to third-placed Salavat Yulaev. Victory lifts Neftekhimik to sixth in the Eastern Conference, improving on a run of three losses in its previous four games. Ufa, meanwhile, has lost two of its last three after a three-game winning run came to an end.

For all that, the home team owed much to some strong goaltending from Artyom Zagidulin. He made 41 saves to frustrate a visiting offense that created opportunities but failed to make the most of them. Initially, it seemed that Salavat would find this game fairly straightforward. Danil Alalykin gave the visitor a fifth-minute lead and Ufa had plenty of attacking play in the opening frame.

However, penalty trouble undermined Ufa. The 26th minute saw Riley Barber tie the game while Vladislav Yefremov was in the box. A minute later, a similar sequence unfolded, this time with Nathan Todd transgressing and Evgeny Mityakin applying the punishment. Late in the middle frame was had another quick exchange of goals: Nikita Khoruzhev extended Neftekhimik’s lead, but Denis Yan pulled one back right away to make it 3-2 at the second break.

Rather than try to protect its lead, Neftekhimik went looking for more goals in the third period. In the first five minutes of the session, the home team outshot Salavat Yulaev 8-2. However, it was notable that this was largely due to a ‘shoot on sight’ policy, while the visitor was inclined to spend more time fashioning better quality looks at goal. Gradually Ufa pushed the game down the ice, helped by a penalty for Barber in the 54th minute. But there was no tying goal, and Jean-Sebastien Dea finished the job with an empty net goal.

Bocharov denies former team-mates

Lokomotiv Yaroslavl 0 Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod 3 (0-0, 0-2, 0-1)

The surprise result of the day came in Yaroslavl, where Torpedo blanked table-topping Lokomotiv. It’s only the sixth loss for the Railwaymen this season, and the third time that Igor Nikitin’s team has failed to score. The visitor avenged a 1-0 loss to Loko on home ice a week ago and secured its first win in three games.

In the first period, the teams produced high-tempo hockey. The action was relentless, but there was a lack of focus that led to a shortage of scoring chances. At the first intermission the game remained goalless.

Torpedo changed that at the start of the second. The teams adopted a more cautious approach after the break, but when Torpedo got a counterattacking chance in the 24th minute, Sergei Goncharuk buried Mikhail Abramov’s pass to make it 1-0. A disciplined performance from both teams meant that the first power play of the game arrived in the 31st minute. Torpedo had the man advantage and made it count when Slava Voynov advanced from the blue line and as he approached the net Bobby Lynch set him up to double the lead.

At the other end, Lokomotiv had more shots (12-8) and more attacking possession (6:07 vs 3:52) than the visitor. However, Ivan Bocharov was in no mood to allow his former team-mates to find a way through.

And that was the pattern in the third as well. Again, Loko had far more of the attacking play. But Bocharov stopped 19 shots to complete a shut-out with 38 saves. And the final word went to Goncharuk, whose empty-netter secured two goals for the night and his team two points for the win.

12-goal thriller in Cherepovets

Severstal Cherepovets 7 Ak Bars Kazan 5 (1-3, 3-0, 3-2)

This was a game that had it all. The teams traded 12 goals, the lead changed hands, and it was all settled in a breathless burst of third-period scoring. Severstal secured back-to-back wins in memorable fashion – and in a stark contrast with the narrow 2-1 win over Admiral during the week. Ak Bars, meanwhile, was relying on rookie goalies in this game, with neither Timur Bilyalov nor Amir Miftakhov in the line-up.

Things started brightly for Ak Bars, with an early power play bringing a second-minute goal for Nic Petan. There was a bump in the road for the visitor in the first period when Kirill Pilipenko tied it up in the fifth, but further tallies from Kirill Semyonov and Semyon Koshelev opened a commanding 3-1 lead at the first intermission.

However, that 3-1 scoreline did not reflect the balance of an evenly contested opening stanza. Home goalie Konstantin Shostak, who allowed three goals on nine shots, paid the price. His replacement, Alexander Samoilov, responded by shutting out Ak Bars in the second period as Severstal turned the game around.

A five-on-three power play midway through the second session proved crucial. Severstal pulled a goal back through Nikita Korostelyov, and only a bench challenge denied the host an equalizer as play continued in five-on-four format. The momentum was now with the Steelmen, and Adam Liska tied it up before Pilipenko’s second of the night made it 4-3 in the 39th minute.

The destiny of this game was settled in the space of 60 seconds, five minutes into the final frame. Yegor Stepanov extended the home lead on 44:28, only for Ilya Safonov to put Ak Bars back within striking distance on 45:00. However, Severstal stymied that recovery thanks to Vsevolod Nikitin’s first KHL goal. That spelled the end of Gleb Nosov’s Ak Bars debut in net. The 24-year-old, who had previously made three appearances for Metallurg in 2020-2021, was replaced by Maxim Arefyev, 20, for his KHL debut.

Arefyev was beaten by Dmitrij Jaskin as the visitor battled to save the game, but was destined to finish on the losing side. Korostelyov put his second of the night into an empty net to complete an exciting win for the home team.