Severstal hit the heights, Torpedo blitzes Avto. October 26 round-up
A seventh successive victory moved Severstal to the top of the Western Conference. Sunday’s 4-1 success over Shanghai has Andrei Kozyrev’s team on top. Torpedo is tied on 26 points after a 7-4 win over Avtomobilist: five goals on nine first period shots tipped this one in the home team’s favor. Nathan Todd scored twice for Spartak as Sochi fell to another loss, and CSKA made it four wins from four with a 2-1 verdict over Amur.
Todd’s double hands Sochi its eighth straight loss
Spartak Moscow 5 HC Sochi 3 (2-2, 2-1, 1-0)
The misery goes on for Sochi as the Leopards fell to an eighth successive loss. True, a battling performance at Spartak produced a more competitive game than the 1-8 drubbing at SKA on Friday, but Vladimir Krikunov’s team never recovered after falling 2-4 behind midway through Sunday’s encounter.
For Spartak, this was a step towards redeeming its 0-5 derby loss at home to Dynamo in its previous game. The Red-and-Whites allowed the opening goal, but turned things around in the first period before rolling out the win.
Sochi got in front in the seventh minute of a neat piece of play. Rafael Bikmullin played the puck to the back boards, Matvei Polyakov fired it to the slot and Denis Vengryzhanovsky was all alone in front of Dmitry Nikolayev to score from close range.
But the home team turned it around with two goals in barely a minute. Nathan Todd converted the first power play of the game on 13:19, moving his current streak to six out of seven games. The Canadian is up to 10 (6+4) in that span. Almost immediately, Danil Pivchulin made it 2-1 for Spartak, finishing off Alexander Belyayev’s quick counterattack.
Sochi tied the game before the intermission thanks to Mikhail Orlov, but Spartak forged ahead in the middle stanza. Luke Lockhart restored the home lead in the 25th minute, but home goalie Nikolayev had to be at his best to deny Daniil Seroukh with a stick save with the Leopards on the power play. After killing that penalty, Mikhail Maltsev added a fourth for the Muscovites with Lockhart among the assists.
The visitor kept looking for a way back. Artur Tyanulin went close, then Bikmullin scored on the power play late in the second period.
The final frame saw Todd claim his second of the night, advancing down the left to convert Joey Keane’s pass. Sochi then had a goal called back when Matvei Guskov’s effort on the rebound was successfully challenged by the home bench. That decision effectively ended the game. There was no further scoring, and Spartak limited the visitor to just four attempts on goal in the third period.
Table-topping Severstal too good for Shanghai
Severstal Cherepovets 4 Shanghai Dragons 1 (1-1, 2-0, 1-0)
The Lynx leapt to the top of the Western Conference after recording a seventh successive victory. Sunday’s game against Shanghai Dragons would not have been many people’s idea of a table-topping clash before the start of the season. Yet the visitor came to Cherepovets looking to return to second in the standings, while Severstal had its eyes on overtaking Lokomotiv at the summit. A home win means Andrei Kozyrev’s men are on top, albeit level on points with Loko and Torpedo. The Dragons remain fourth after losing in regulation for the first time since Oct. 7.
The first period was a cautious, evenly-matched affair. The teams managed just 10 shots on goal between them, and a penalty on Dragons’ new defenseman Ben Harpur in the 14th minute led to the breakthrough. Ruslan Abrosimov converted the first power play of the game. However, Severstal’s joy was short-lived: back at equal strength, Shanghai quickly tied it up through leading scorer Borna Rendulic. The Croatian claimed his ninth goal and 17th point of the campaign.
In the middle frame, the game remained close on the ice even as Severstal established a gap on the scoreboard. Mikhail Ilyin restored the home lead in the 25th minute but the Steelmen took regular penalties, inhibiting their progress. However, Shanghai was unable to take advantage and fell further behind to a Timur Mukhanov effort on 32:34.
Late in the second, Harpur returned to the box on a double minor. That enabled Severstal to up the pressure. There was no goal on that power play, but early in the third another man advantage saw Nikolai Chebykin make it 4-1. That ended the Dragons’ resistance: the home team led the shot count 11-4 in the third and easily closed out the win.
Nesterov pots winner as CSKA go four-in-a-row
CSKA Moscow 2 Amur Khabarovsk 1 (0-1, 2-0, 0-0)
Igor Nikitin’s CSKA recorded a fourth successive win, climbing to seventh in the Western Conference standings and showing signs that its early season inconsistency may be behind it.
Despite falling behind to Amur in the first period, the Muscovites turned things around in the second. Goals from Ivan Drozdov and Nikita Nesterov proved to be enough to claim a narrow victory, leaving the Tigers to face a third straight loss.
An impressive power play from the visitor brought the opening goal in the eighth minute. Denis Zernov was the first player to go to the box, and Amur produced a well-worked play to break the deadlock. Yaroslav Likhachyov pulled the defense out of position before dishing off a pass that invited Ignat Korotkikh to score into an open net.
That was the only goal of the opening frame, and Amur was good value for its lead. But after the intermission, CSKA improved. After 24 minutes, Prokhor Poltapov’s bold, speedy surge cut a swathe through the visiting defense. A perfect feed presented Drozdov with the equalizer.
Then defenseman Nesterov cruised up to the slot in time to meet Dmitry Buchelnikov’s feed from behind the net with an unstoppable one-timer. Midway through the game, CSKA had the lead and it would not relinquish that advantage.
However, Amur certainly threatened to make things tough for its host. Early in the third, the Tigers had a five-on-three power play. Likhachyov hit the post but CSKA held on, then got a power play of its own. However, by the middle of the frame the home team was happy to defend. Amur led the shots 13-4 in the final frame, but was unable to beat Dmitry Gamzin, who finished with 32 saves.
Clinical Torpedo shoot down Avtomobilist
Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod 7 Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg 4 (5-1, 0-1, 2-2)
A five-goal blitz in the first period put Torpedo on course for a win that gives it a share of top spot in the standings. Alexei Isakov’s men bounced back from a shoot-out reverse at Lada to make it three wins and seven points for the last four games.
The game was effectively decided when the home team scored three goals in 59 seconds. Oddly enough, that came in response to falling behind: after killing a first-minute penalty, Avtomobilist settled into the game better and Jesse Blacker fired home the opener on 11:03.
Then came a devastating, clinical response. Nikita Shavin tied it up on 12:58, Yegor Vinogradov made it 2-1 on 13:23. Avtomobilist called a time-out, but could not thwart Torpedo’s momentum: on 13:57, Bogdan Konyushkov added a third and chased starting goalie Vladimir Galkin from his net.
Evgeny Alikin’s arrival didn’t exactly transform the game, though. Yegor Sokolov and Andrei Belevich added two more goals in the first period, Torpedo finished that opening frame with five goals off just nine shots on target.
From there, things could hardly get much worse for Avtomobilist. Maxim Denezhkin pulled a goal back in the 28th minute, with Anatoly Golyshev getting his first point of the season after returning from a ban.
That was the only goal of the middle frame, but the pucks started to fly in once more in the final stanza. Vasily Atanasov and Curtis Valk traded markers early in the session, leaving the score at 6-3. Then Alexander Sharov dinged the Torpedo crossbar on the power play moments later. Midway through the third, Golyshev was celebrating his first goal of the season and, at 4-6, Avtomobilist had a fighting chance of salvaging the game as it dominated the play.
The visitor had 23 attempts on Denis Kostin’s net in the third period, but could not close the gap any further. Instead, Vinogradov put his second of the night into an empty net to seal the verdict for the home team.
