KHL 3x3 Round 16: Ak Bars out in front

A dominant performance from Ak Bars maintained its position as the team to beat in the KHL 3x3 Championship - and earned the Kazan club a new nickname! 

Story of the Round

Kazan’s “Brazilians on Skates” could be a nickname that sticks. Coined by a player whose team won just one of 10 games against Ak Bars, it seems to sum up how the team has dominated the KHL 3x3 tournament. The author of the phrase was Dinamo Minsk forward Alexander Lukashevich, who was commentating on the game between Ak Bars and Avangard.

In recent rounds the Ak Bars team has changed, bringing in young players from Bars, and that update has worked out well. A combination of the players who lifted the team to the top of the standings (Drozhkin, Gorokhov, Muravyov and Shlyakhtov) and youngsters (Chetverikov, Mukhin, Shakirov and Yakupov) are keeping the team driving forward. In almost every game Ak Bars scored six or more goals. Twice, it had a shut-out, winning both of the key games against its closest rival, Metallurg. The climax came in the Supergame when, in front of its vocal supporters, Ak Bars crushed Dinamo Minsk 6-0. In this round, there was no competition for the “Brazilians”.

In fact, this round was notable for every team. Metallurg was a surprise, and not in a good way. We expected a battle with Ak Bars but it never happened: Magnitka lost the first two games of the round and didn’t recover. Along the way, the league’s leading scorer Pavel Varfolomeyev missed Sunday’s game with Dinamo even though he was fit to play. There are challenges ahead for young coach Evgeny Timkin, who needs to get the team back to itself ahead of the next round.

Avangard’s performance was ambiguous. Defensively, the Siberians were impressive. No other team has emphasized its D as much as Avangard so far, and that tactic has worked well: even the most prolific opponents have struggled to find a way through. However, the offense has been less effective, especially with penalty shots. The Hawks lost all three shoot-outs and ended up with just one victory in this round.

Meanwhile, Dinamo Minsk had a good time, despite a nightmare start. In the first game a much-changed line-up faced Ak Bars and lost 0-7. But the newbies quickly adapted and Dinamo began to pick up wins. That achieved two goals: the immediate aim of finishing in the top two and qualifying for the Supergame, and the longer-term target of climbing off the foot of its division and returning to the playoff places.

Player of the Round

Ramil Gimaletdinov (Ak Bars)

Prior to this round, only Avangard’s Eduard Reyzvikh had managed two shut-outs in one weekend. And one of those was in the Supergame, meaning that Gimaletdinov is the first who double shut-out will enter the tournament statistics. Meanwhile, this round Ak Bars matched Avangard’s achievement of not conceding in the final game of the contest, nor the Supergame. However, there was a different: in the bonus game, Alexander Lazushin was the goalie. Gimaletdinov had said just a month ago that for him a shut-out wasn’t really an end unto itself. That might explain his calm response to today’s success, thanking the team and fans and promising that there was more to come.

Speaking of heroes, we have to mention Avangard goalie Igor Tyalo, who was just great. First, he played every minute of all six games. He faced 127 shots and stopped 113 of them. By a strange coincidence, both Tyalo and Gimaletdinov had the same save ratio: 88.9%. And if we leave aside Avangard’s collapse in the third period of Friday’s game against Ak Bars, when it allowed five goals, Tyalo never gave up more than two! However, on that occasion the team did nothing to help the goalie – unusual when the Hawks normally look much better on defense than on offense.

Game of the Round

Dinamo Minsk 6 Metallurg 7

Metallurg came into this game after back-to-back losses and jumped right into a 4-0 lead. It seemed that Dinamo had fallen under a team with a point to prove. But the Belarusians had already produced a fightback against Ak Bars and five of the next six goals went their way to make it 5-5. It amounted to some comeback. The third period was decisive, with Magnitka scoring twice and keeping hold of its lead. Once again, the team’s leaders made the difference with four points each for Pavel Varfolomeyev (2+2) and Alexander Lukashevich (1+3). The loss did not stop Dinamo claiming second place while Metallurg would not celebrate another win in this round.

Debut of the Round

There were plenty of bright debuts in this round. Avangard iced a World Champion in 3x3 for the first time with Nikita Nikitin on the team, while Evgeny Orlov also did well. Young Miroslav Mikhalyov and Mikhail Buchkin, who was recently playing in Hungary, both showed up well for Dinamo Minsk. But the star of the round was another Dinamo newcomer – Evgeny Lisovets. The experienced defenseman was a key figure in a successful round for the Belarusians. He had a lot of ice time – more than 10 minutes a game – and used it productively to score 7 (3+4) points in six games. 

Photo of the round

It was a wonderful weekend for Ak Bars fans. On Saturday they saw their team win the opening game of its Gagarin Cup playoff against Dynamo Moscow. Then on Sunday a big group headed to support Ak Bars in 3x3 play. They were rewarded with two shut-out wins, including the Supergame.