Goal flurry fires Salavat back to second. February 3 round-up

The goals keep coming in the KHL. After 55 on Sunday, Monday’s solitary game produced 10 more as Salavat Yulaev got the better of Metallurg in Ufa. 

Magnitka blows 4-2 lead in four minutes

Salavat Yulaev Ufa 6 Metallurg Magnitogorsk 4 (2-1, 0-2, 4-1)

Three goals in four minutes at the start of the third period turned this game around for the home team. Metallurg was up 4-2 after Danila Yurov scored at the start of the final frame, and seemed poised to take the win.

But the home team responded with a blistering burst of offense. On 42:17, Danil Alalykin pulled a goal back when he went around the back got a helpful bounce off a defenseman’s skate as he looked for Alexander Komarov on the crease. Then came a Metallurg penalty, and Yaroslav Tsulygin converted the power play to tie the scores.

The balance of play had swung firmly in the home team’s favor, and on 46:16 Salavat Yulaev went ahead. Visiting defenseman Robin Press was under little pressure in his own zone, yet his cross-ice pass intended for Alexei Maklyukov went straight to Sheldon Rempal, who gleefully steered past the helpless Alexander Smolin.

That was Rempal’s second goal of the game, and the second time he had put Salavat Yulaev in front. In the first period he scored the home team’s second of the night, following Josh Leivo’s equalizer on the power play, after Nikita Mikhailis had give Magnitka an early lead.

Like Rempal, Mikhailis also scored two. He tied the game early in the second period, and 23 seconds later Dmitry Moiseyev had Metallurg up 3-2. Salavat Yulaev never really recovered from that fast start to the second period and managed just three shots at Smolin in the middle frame as the Steelmen dominated proceedings. When Moiseyev made it 4-2 at the start of the third, it was hard to see a way back for the home team.

But that rapid goal rush turned the game upside down in the space of four minutes. And just as Metallurg was gearing up for a final storm on Alexander Samonov’s net, Leivo set up Alexander Chmelevski to make the final score 6-4. Ufa’s six goals came from just 24 shots as back-to-back victories returned Viktor Kozlov’s team to second place in the Eastern Conference.