Torpedo suffers first loss, Radulov hits hat-trick

Shanghai Dragons handed Torpedo a first defeat of the season thanks to Nick Merkley’s overtime goal. That 64th-minute strike was the first and only tally of the game after 60 goalless minutes. It was a similar story in Minsk, where Dinamo edged Barys on an OT marker from Sam Anas. Lokomotiv had no such problems in front of the net, blasting Sochi 5-0 with Alexander Radulov claiming a hat-trick. Dynamo Moscow won 3-1 at Amur and Severstal succeeded on the road at Sibir.  

Kudashov breaks Znarok’s record

Amur Khabarovsk 1 Dynamo Moscow 3 (0-1, 0-1, 1-1)

Dynamo wrapped up a five-game road trip with victory at Amur, making it back-to-back success in the Far East. Monday’s success means the head coach Alexei Kudashov overtakes Oleg Znarok’s record of 176 victories behind the Blue-and-White bench. Znarok, though, remains the only man to win the Gagarin Cup twice with the Moscow club.



The visitor made just one change from its shoot-out win at Admiral, bringing Artyom Ilyenko to center the third line and moving Artyom Shvets-Rogovoi to the wing. Amur, beaten 1-0 by Sibir last time, was unchanged.

In the first period, the best chances came on the power play. And when Amur was reduced to three skaters late in the frame, Dynamo took advantage to open the scoring. Nikita Gusev hammered home Jordan Weal’s pass with a one-timer that gave Maxim Dorozhko no chance.

At the start of the second, Devin Brosseau doubled the visitor’s lead. Last season, Brosseau played for Amur, today he grabbed the winning goal against his former colleagues. Dorozhko stopped the forward’s first shot but could not freeze the puck and Brosseau put away the rebound. Then the Tigers again found themselves reduced to three skaters but this time the PK kept Dynamo at bay. Gradually, the home team managed to move the game away from its net and enjoyed some spells of pressure as the middle frame drew to its conclusion.

That momentum carried into the third period, and in the 46th minute Alexander Galchenyuk pulled a goal back when he intercepted the puck five meters from Maxim Motorygin’s net and blasted it into the top corner. The home forward was close to a second goal during his team’s next power play, but put his shot wide of the post. At the other end, Dynamo ruthlessly exploited an Amur error to make the game safe: Dylan Sikura snaffled the puck and his stretch pass from the corner released Max Comtois to make it 3-1.
 

Abrosimov leads scoring race, Severstal beats Sibir

Sibir Novosibirsk 2 Severstal Cherepovets 4 (0-3, 1-0, 1-1)

Two goals from Severstal’s Roman Abrosimov were matched by a double from Sibir’s Scott Wilson, but the visitor took the verdict in Novosibirsk.



Sibir’s recent road trip to the Far East extracted a heavy toll: the team lost David Ferrance and Andrei Churkin. Then, in the build-up to today’s game Ivan Klimovich picked up an injury and Valentin Pyanov fell ill. With the defense decimated, the loss of two centers only added to the crisis – and the shortage of options for head coach Vadim Yepanchintsev made itself felt in the first period. The home centers struggled on the draw, and the Gordeyev – Kalinichenko defensive pairing proved to be a weak link. With those two on the ice, Abrosimov scored twice to lead the KHL in goals this season. Alexander Skorenov was also on target as Ilya Kvochko’s assist brought his first point of the season.

Severstal was good value for its 3-0 lead at the first intermission, outshooting Sibir 16-5. The only opening for the home team saw young Ilya Lyuzenkov shoot into Alexander Samoilov’s glove when a corner opened up for his shot.

After the intermission, Anton Krasotkin replaced Louis Domingue in the home net. That helped usher in a small improvement: Sibir moved play down the ice, Krasotkin did not allow any further goals. However, at the other end only a Wilson tally late in the frame made a small inroad into the deficit.

In the third period, Samoilov almost gifted Sibir a lifeline. He rushed from his net and carelessly sent the puck right onto Nikita Soshnikov’s stick. However, the home forward missed the chance to make it a one-goal game. A few minutes later, Soshnikov redeemed himself: a great shot on the power play saw Wilson direct the puck home to make it 2-3. But the fightback came up short and Ivan Podshivalov added a fourth for Severstal to seal the win.

Radulov’s hat-trick powers Loko past Sochi

Lokomotiv Yaroslavl 5 HC Sochi 0 (2-0, 1-0, 2-0)

Alexander Radulov scored a hat-trick and missed a penalty shot as Lokomotiv overpowered Sochi on home ice. In his 300th game as head coach in the KHL Bob Hartley never saw his team seriously troubled against the Leopards as it eased to a third straight victory.



Radulov started early. He opened the scoring after three minutes, leading a two-on-one rush alongside Yegor Surin and finishing the play himself. In the 14th minute, Alexander Volkov increased the lead with his first goal of the season, winning the puck on the boards and making his way to the slot to beat Pavel Khomchenko with a backhand shot.

A couple of minutes later, Volkov threatened again, only to be hauled down by Noel Hoefenmayer. Radulov stepped in to take the penalty shot, but Khomchenko read his intentions and caught the shot.

The visitor offered little going forward, but Troy Josephs was close to halving the deficit in the second period. The forward tested Daniil Isayev with a shot to the short side, but was unable to register his first goal since joining Sochi in the summer.

Instead, the next goal went to Radulov just as the middle frame was coming to an end. Martin Gernat drove the puck from the point to slot and the veteran forward finished the job to make it 3-0.

And Radulov completed his hat-trick early in the third. Maxim Berezin was ejected from the game after a high hit, and the major penalty saw Surin fire in a shot that rebounded straight to his team-mate. That completed Radulov’s fifth treble in the KHL.

Late in the game, Maxim Shalunov completed the scoring to pot his third of the season. Isayev finished with 24 saves in a 5-0 win.

Shutov’s resistance ends in OT

Dinamo Minsk 1 Barys Astana 0 OT (0-0, 0-0, 0-0, 1-0)

The Belarusians were the only team to beat Barys during the Kazakhs’ opening home stand, and today Dmitry Kvartalnov’s team did it again on home ice. This time, though, the win came after a goalie duel that saw the game reach overtime deadlocked at 0-0.



That meant, for the third game in a row, Dinamo went into the extras. This time, after losses at Avangard and SKA, the Bison took the verdict. Sam Anas got the vital goal on 63:06, firing home a one-timer off a cross-ice feed from the in-form Alex Limoges.

It was a goal that took a long time in coming. Although Dinamo looked livelier in the early stages, the home team struggled to get shots on target. It took four minutes to test Andrei Shutov for the first, and the visiting goalie was next called into action in the seventh minute. It wasn’t that the teams played cautiously, more that neither set of forwards was able to find the space for a testing shot at the opposition net.

In the second period, Dinamo built a greater territorial advantage but both defenses continued to do a good job of getting sticks into passing lanes and protecting their goalies. Barys struggled to test Zach Fucale at all: the visitor saw a power play come and go without a shot on target, and didn’t force a save from the Canadian until five minutes before the hooter.

The third period saw Dinamo try to raise the tempo, eager to avoid yet another round of overtime. The home team fired 16 shots at Shutov but could not make the breakthrough; the visiting goalie impressed throughout and finished with 36 saves in regulation and five more in the extras. Barys even managed to kill Ian McCoshen’s penalty at the start of overtime, but ultimately fell to that Anas goal.
 

Dragons end Torpedo’s unbeaten start

Shanghai Dragons 1 Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod 0 OT (0-0, 0-0, 0-0, 1-0)

The last unbeaten record of the season has fallen. Shanghai needed overtime to find a way to Torpedo’s net, but a power play goal on 63:09 saw Nick Merkley end the visitor’s winning start to the season.



Despite today’s loss, Alexei Isakov’s team remains top of the standings on 13 points, one better than Metallurg. So far, it has taken at least one point from every game this season. The Dragons remain in eighth place, but draw level with CSKA on seven points.

There was an element of fortune about the winning goal. Torpedo had already killed a minute of Kirill Voronin’s penalty in overtime and looked capable of finishing the job. But Borna Rendulic stretched the defense with a cross-ice pass and Merkley’s shot from out wide took a cruel deflection off Sergei

Boikov’s stick to wrongfoot Denis Kostin and slither into the net.

Kostin, preferred to Ivan Kulbakov today, had made 38 saves up to that point. The first and third periods were evenly-matched, but in the middle frame the home team took control and outshot Torpedo 17-7.

At the other end, Patrik Rybar celebrated his first shut-out of the season, making 25 saves