Okulov, Shvyryov at the double. January 31 round-up
Konstantin Okulov scored two goals to help an injury-hit Avangard make short work of Barys in a 5-1 victory in Omsk. He wasn’t the only double goalscorer, with Sochi’s Igor Shvyryov also notching twice in a 4-2 success against KRS. Friday’s other game saw Ak Bars win 3-1 at Lada to keep up the pressure on Eastern Conference leader Traktor.
Okulov’s double lifts injury-hit Hawks
Avangard Omsk 5 Barys Astana 1 (3-0, 0-1, 2-0)
Two goals from Konstantin Okulov set Avangard on the way to victory over Barys. He scored twice in the first period as the Hawks finished their January home stand in some style against the struggling Kazakhs.
It was a success forged in some adversity. The injured list in Omsk was already extensive, and head coach Guy Boucher faced further problems with news that forward Guy Boucher will need an operation, while Danil Bashkirov took ill on the day of the game. That meant a debut for Kirill Tankov as the home team was forced to dress just 11 forwards.
Barys had its own problems, with 11 members of the roster called up for international duty. That meant a line-up with an unusual look and a highly experimental defense.
Nonetheless, Barys started well, helped by a power play after just 14 seconds. Despite getting some shots at Mikhail Berdin in the home net, there was no goal and before long the visitor was in penalty trouble. Avangard played almost a full two minutes of five-on-three but could not force an opening despite that advantage.
The opening goal came with the teams at equal strength. Mark Verba’s seventh-minute shot saw Igor Martynov score on the rebound. Within a minute, Okulov doubled the lead on the power play and he finished the third period by making it 3-0. Those were the first goals since the former CSKA man’s Avangard debut on Dec. 28.
With a commanding lead, the home team was a little gung-ho at the start of the second period and got stung on the counterattack. Batyrlan Muratov scored for Barys, offering a brief flicker of resistance. However, that barely disrupted the flow of attacks towards Nikita Boyarkin’s net as Avangard continued to dominate the game, if not the scoring.
Pressure eventually brought its reward in the third period. Ilya Kablukov made it 4-1 in the 49th minute, and Ryan Spooner had the final word as the Hawks eased to a 5-1 win.
Ak Bars proves too strong for Lada
Lada Togliatti 1 Ak Bars Kazan 3 (0-2, 1-0, 0-1)
In the first period, Ak Bars lived up to its status as the favorite. The visitor scored two unanswered goals and outshot Lada almost 3-to-1. The opening goal came in the 11th minute when Nikita Lyamkin set up an attack, Dmitry Katalevsky fired the puck to the back door and Artur Brovkin had a simple finish to make it 1-0.
If that goal was the work of the new generation of Ak Bars forwards, the second came from an established master. Alexander Barabanov’s return to Russia this season has been an effective one and a couple of minutes later he scored his 19th goal of the season. Admittedly, he knew relatively little about it as Alexei Marchenko’s shot from the right point bounced off the forward’s skate and into the net.
The home team was not entirely deflated by a difficult first period. After the intermission, Lada came out in a more competitive frame of mind. Perhaps there was a sense that Togliatti’s playoff prospects are beginning to fade, and that inspired a stronger effort to get back into this game. There was some reward for that effort as well: pressure led to penalties, and a five-on-three power play saw Arkhip Neolenko halve the deficit when he redirected Denis Barantsev’s blast past Timur Bilyalov.
After that, the game was fairly even. Ak Bars could not find the killer goal to take the game away from Lada, and while the margin was a slender one, the home team had hope of saving the goal. Dmitry Kugryshev was closest to a tying goal, but Bilyalov did well to stop his dangerous wrister.
The result was settled in the last minute. With Alexander Trushkov on the bench, Marchenko collected his second assist of the night as Dmitrij Jaskin found the empty net. Ak Bars stays firmly in the pack chasing down Eastern Conference leader Traktor, while Lada remains in 10th, eight points adrift of a playoff spot.
Unhappy new year for Red Star
Kunlun Red Star 2 HC Sochi 4 (1-0, 1-3, 0-1)
On a weekend when Lunar New Year festivities are at their height, Kunlun honored the club’s Chinese heritage with a special gold-and-red festive uniform. But Friday’s night’s result proved less than golden: a disappointing loss at home to basement club Sochi denied the Dragons the chance to close on eighth-placed Torpedo.
The day began well enough for the home team, Alexander Sharov getting his second goal for the club to give KRS the lead at the first intermission. Kunlun also finished the frame on the power play after Andrei Nikonov was ejected from the game for kneeing.
But it all went wrong in the second period as Sochi’s special teams secured a grip on the game. With Nikonov’s major penalty still in force, the Leopards tied it up on a short-handed tally from Igor Shvyryov. Then, just after the visitor’s first power play of the night came to an end, Sergei Popov made it 2-1. Next, Red Star had two men in the box and Maxim Fedotov took advantage to add a third. Curiously, Will Bitten’s assist on that play was his first since joining Sochi. The former Spartak forward has shown prolific goalscoring form with eight in 13 ahead of today’s game, but had not previously registered a helper.
Kunlun belatedly regained some composure and Doyle Somerby’s fourth of the season reduced the deficit in the 33rd minute. However, Sochi had three goals from six shots in the period, and that conversion rate did serious damage for the home team.
The third period brought repeated Red Star pressure. The shots piled up on Evgeny Volokhin’s net but the home team struggled to find a way through. And an empty-net goal from Shvyryov settled the outcome, snapping Sochi’s four-game skid and bringing Sergei Zubov’s team a third win in four games against Kunlun.
