Lokomotiv steams into round two, SKA rallies to beat Dynamo in thriller

Lokomotiv secured its place in the next round of the 2025 KHL playoffs, completing a sweep of Torpedo with a 2-1 verdict in Nizhny Novgorod. Two power play goals made the difference for Igor Nikitin’s team, which is the only one to proceed through the first round without dropping a game. If that was straightforward, SKA’s game with Dynamo was anything but. The home team trailed 2-4 with five to play, tied it up then hit the post in the regulation. At the start of overtime, Marat Khairulin missed a penalty shot and SKA had a goal disallowed in the 74th minute before Max Comtois won it for the visitor.

Comtois wins double OT thriller in Petersburg

SKA St. Petersburg 4 Dynamo Moscow 5 2OT (1-3, 0-0, 3-1, 0-1)

(Dynamo leads the series 3-1)

(Series tied at 2-2)

This is fast turning into the most exciting series of this year’s playoffs. Today’s game saw Dynamo blow a two-goal lead in the closing minutes, then survive a shot against the post in regulation and a penalty shot in overtime.

Then came a disallowed goal in the 74th minute, SKA Mikhail Vorobyov ruled to have impeded Dynamo goalie Maxim Motorygin as he tried to force home the puck following Marat Khairullin’s shot.

And those misses proved costly when Dynamo grabbed a winner deep in the second period of the extras. Artemy Pleshkov came a long way from his crease to meet Dylan Sikura and push the puck away, but when Sikura got behind the net he drew the home defense towards him and sent a pass back to the slot for Max Comtois to rifle home the winner.

That restored Dynamo’s two-game lead in the series, and Alexei Kudashov’s team can finish the job on Friday in Moscow. But it was quite a journey to get to that 3-1 scoreline in the series.

An action-packed first period saw the host grab an early lead. Sikura’s first-minute penalty was punished by Ivan Demidov, encouraging the home team’s ambition to tie the series before returning to Moscow.

But almost immediately, things started to go wrong for SKA. Sergei Plotnikov went to the box just after Demidov’s goal and Ilya Ozhiganov was the thickness of the post away from tying the scores on the power play. Dynamo killed a penalty of its own – Valentin Zykov threatening to double the home lead – before turning the game around in the second half of the opening stanza.

Again, penalty calls shaped the game. Mikhail Vorobyov sat, and after Sikura hit the crossbar, Pavel Kudryavtsev got the tying goal in the 12th minute. Another power play led to another goal: just as Valentin Zykov returned to the ice, Max Comtois setting up Cedric Paquette to beat Yegor Zavragin. And the change of direction was underlined just before the intermission when Artyom Sergeyev made it 3-1 for the visitor.

SKA responded by replacing Zavragin with Pleshkov at the intermission. The incoming goalie was quickly into the action, snuffing out Yegor Rimashevsky’s one-on-one. Later, he pulled off a fantastic save to deny Nikita Gusev a power play goal before Pavel Kudryavtsev spurned a great chance to pad the visitor’s lead.

At the other end, Dynamo was busy blocking shots. Demidov had SKA’s best chance of the second period but Motorygin wasn’t buying the dummy he tried to sell.

The host needed a goal at the start of the third – and Mikhail Grigorenko duly obliged. In the 43rd minute he got SKA right back into the game when he wriggled clear of the combined attentions of Ozhiganov and Kirill Adamchuk on the slot, getting his stick to Alexander Nikishin’s feed from the blue line and beating Motorygin. Soon after that, it was Motorygin’s turn to be saved by the post when Andrei Pedan blasted a Evgeny Kuznetsov feed against the piping.

Midway through the final frame, Jordan Weal’s slash on Kuznetsov brought a major penalty for the Dynamo man – and seemingly invited SKA to go ahead and at least tie the game. However, head coach Rotenberg has a habit of going empty net on the power play when chasing the game. Pleshkov went to the sidelines, but six-on-four wasn’t the right equation: Dynamo stole the puck, and Paquette scored his second of the game.

Down by two with the six to play, SKA called a time-out – and this time Rotenberg found the answers. Pleshkov again left his net, and remained on the bench even after Dynamo got back to full strength. Now the gamble paid off: Pavel Akolzin’s goal on 55:03 had us back to a one-goal game with time enough for SKA to save itself.

Sure enough, on 56:37 it was 4-4, Khairullin stuffing the puck home from close range amid a crowd scene on Motorygin’s crease. The home team might even have won it in regulation when Zakhar Bardakov hit the post, but instead we moved into overtime for the second time this series.

The extras kept up the frantic pace of the third period. SKA had a penalty shot in the 64th minute after Motorygin knocked his net of its moorings but Khairullin fired wide. In the same incident, home forward Zykov slashed at Anton Sizov; instead of a game-winning goal, SKA found itself on the PK. And that was just the start of the drama in two compelling additional frames before Comtois won it in the 93rd minute. 

Loko power play sweeps past Torpedo

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

(Lokomotiv wins the series 4-0)

The Railwaymen steamed into the second round of the 2025 Gagarin Cup playoffs after completing a sweep of Torpedo. Thursday’s 2-1 victory in Nizhny Novgorod finished the job for Lokomotiv, giving Igor Nikitin’s men plenty of time to prepare for its next opponent.

The second round will start on April 11 for Loko, which will face the lowest surviving team from the Eastern Conference.

Game four began with Torpedo trying to force the tempo. Igor Larionov’s team knew it had no margin for error tonight and went out in search of a strong start. However, Lokomotiv’s fabled defensive resilience ensured that there were few opportunities for an early breakthrough.

Gradually the visitor began to shift the momentum back into its favor, albeit without generating many scoring chances of its own. Much of the game turned into a gritty physical battle as the opening stanza finished goalless.

The turning point came at the start of the second period. Torpedo’s Kirill Voronin was assessed a tripping major – rather needlessly in Lokomotiv’s zone. That gave the visitor the first power play of the night and it led to the first goal. Alexander Radulov was the scorer, getting in front of home goalie Ivan Kulbakov and redirecting Martin Gernat’s point shot into the net after 24 minutes.

A couple of minutes later, Torpedo again took a penalty and Lokomotiv again found the net. Richard Panik, who had an assist on the opener, scored his first KHL playoff goal with a deft redirect on Byron Froese’s shot from the right-hand circle. Kulbakov read the initial effort on its way to the far corner, but had no chance when the Slovak forward got his stick down and steered it to the short side.

A third Lokomotiv power play drew a shrill chorus of whistles and jeers from the home crowd. This time, though, the visitor was unable to take advantage of the extra man and the game remained alive. More than alive, Torpedo earned a PP of its own just before the intermission, giving hope of a strong start to a third-period fightback.

However, Lokomotiv killed that penalty effectively. Daniil Isayev was barely called into action and once back to full strength the visitor, not for the first time, locked the game down efficiently. Torpedo seldom managed to trouble the goalie, although Kulbakov also had a quiet time of it as Loko paid little attention to adding to its lead.

The tranquillity was rudely interrupted with two-and-a-half minutes to play when Vladislav Firstov held off two opponents to score from the slot, giving Torpedo hope of saving the game. Larionov benched Firstov and called a time-out as his team prepared one last surge to try to prolong its season. But there was no further scoring and Lokomotiv ensured that it reached the second round with a minimum of drama.