Loko enjoys May Day celebration

A sell-out crowd in Ufa was hoping for a parade as the 2025 KHL playoff semi-finals came to Bashkortostan. But Lokomotiv derailed those hopes, taking a 4-2 victory to get in front in the series.

Radulov’s game-winner puts Railwaymen ahead in the series

Salavat Yulaev Ufa 2 Lokomotiv Yaroslavl 4 (0-1, 1-2, 1-1)

(Lokomotiv leads the series 2-1)

For the first time ever, we saw KHL action in May. On a date traditionally devoted to celebrating labor and the working classes, the Railwaymen of Lokomotiv came out on top in this 2025 Gagarin Cup semi-final game and moved 2-1 ahead in the series.

As befits the occasion, this was a hard-working win for Loko. The visitor blocked 26 shots as Ufa built up a handy advantage in terms of attacking possession and goal attempts. Lokomotiv also had to kill a major penalty in the third period after Nikita Cherepanov was ejected from the game after slamming Pyotr Khokhryakov into the boards. Khokhryakov had to be stretchered off the ice.

That five-minute power play offered Salavat Yulaev a way back into the game. Down 1-3 at the time, the home team called goalie Semyon Vyazovoi to the bench in the 52nd minute in search of a vital goal. Lokomotiv withstood the pressure until the penalty elapsed, but just as the teams returned to full strength Alexander Chmelevski forced the puck home from close range after Yaroslav Tsulygin’s long-range effort was saved.

Ufa now had just under seven minutes to save the game, and there was a further boost when Loko’s Ilya Nikolayev sat for tripping on 56:01. Again, Vyazovoi went to the sidelines but this time Salavat Yulaev’s surge was checked when Dennis Yan was assessed a double minor for high sticks. When Nikolayev returned to the game there was a certain inevitability in what followed: the forward jumped out of the box, stripped an opponent of the puck on the blue line and set up a counterattack that ended with Maxim Beryozkin scoring into an empty net to seal the win.

Before all that, Lokomotiv opened the scoring on the first power play of the game when Alexei Bereglazov scored in the seventh minute. That was the only goal of the first period, and Salavat Yulaev tied the scores at the start of the second through Vladislav Yefremov.

But the visitor took control late in the middle frame. Nikita Kiryanov benefitted from a freakish deflection to restore Lokomotiv’s lead; the forward had plenty to do when the puck skewed off a Salavat skate and flew into his path, but showed great reactions to rifle home a shot from the deep slot. Then, just before the intermission, Loko got a third goal. Alexander Radulov, whose only Gagarin Cup win came as an Ufa player back in 2011, produced a masterful redirect to send Alexander Yelesin’s point shot bouncing past Vyazovoi and into the net to establish a two-goal lead.

The win puts Lokomotiv up in the series after it lost the opening game on home ice. The action continues Saturday in Ufa with Viktor Kozlov’s home team looking to tie this battle before returning to the Volga for game five.