Liska treble moves Severstal clear. January 15 round-up

A hat-trick from Adam Liska helped Severstal to a 6-4 win over Dinamo Minsk, putting the Lynx two points clear at the top of the Eastern Conference. The game in Togliatti also had some fine individual performances: Jack Rodewald, Vladislav Yefremov and Riley Sawchuk scored two apiece as Salavat Yulaev beat Lada 5-2. Ak Bars scored five on the road at Amur, Avangard edged a 2-1 scoreline at home to CSKA and Neftekhimik recorded a second successive shut-out win.

Tigers fightback falls short

Amur Khabarovsk 3 Ak Bars Kazan 5 (1-1, 0-2, 2-2)

Despite allowing a fightback from 1-3, Ak Bars managed to clinch a victory at Amur to begin its Far East tour. Alexander Barabanov had two goals and an assist for the visitor, with Mitch Miller (1+1) and Ilya Safonov (0+2) making two-point contributions.

Visiting head coach Anvar Gatiyatulin refreshed his team after a 0-2 loss at home to Neftekhimik last time. Brandon Biro and Vladimir Alistrov were the more notable absentees following that reshuffle.

It didn’t take long for captain Barabanov to open the scoring. In the second minute, a two-on-one rush saw him beat his defenseman and finish with a backhanded shot past Maxim Dorozhko. After falling behind, Amur came back strongly: by the middle of the session, the home team was up 9-2 in shots on goal and that pressure ultimately brought an equalizer through Alexander Filatyev, who took advantage of some passive defense to score in the 19th minute.

The Tigers looked to build on that success at the start of the second: Kirill Slepets threatened, Artyom Shvaryov hit the post and Yaroslav Likhachyov fired wide of an open corner. But Ak Bars held on, and gradually changed the pattern of play. By the end of the middle frame the visitor had a 3-1 lead. Semyon Terekhov celebrated his return to the team by wiring home a wrister off Miller’s feed, then the American defenseman potted another well-taken goal on the counter.

Amur responded well in the third and had the scores level by the 50-minute mark. The defense stepped up with a big contribution: Yaroslav Dyblenko boomed home a powerful shot after a turnover in the Ak Bars zone, the Yegor Rykov struck on the power play. There were chances for the home team to get ahead after that, but instead Ak Bars demonstrated some clinical finishing to secure the verdict. Barabanov pounced on a loose puck in the slot to restore the lead then, late in the game, the visitor’s first power play saw Ilya Karpukhin complete a 5-3 scoreline.

Hawks grind to hard-working win

Avangard Omsk 2 CSKA Moscow 1 (1-0, 0-1, 1-0)

The Hawks rebounded from a home loss to Salavat Yulaev, ending CSKA’s three-game winning streak in a hard-fought affair.

Avangard began the game on the front foot, but soon fluffed a line change and took a too many men minor. But the CSKA power play was weak and back at equal strength the home team resumed its pressure on Dmitry Gamzin’s net. The visitor rarely got out of its zone and midway through the first period Damir Sharipzyanov opened the scoring with a point shot that deflected into the net via a defenseman.

That was the only goal of the first period, although Avangard remained very much on top of the game.

But things changed in the second. Early in the session, CSKA sounded a warning with a dangerous counterattack that saw Denis Guryanov force a fine save from Nikita Serebryakov. The warning fell on deaf ears; another counter brought a tying goal for in-form Prokhor Poltapov. By now the Muscovites were looking the better team, taking advantage of the short bench and pushing play into the Omsk zone. The home team created one decent chance for Andrew Poturalski, but it was level after 40 minutes.

The third period started with a birthday surprise from Vyacheslav Voynov. The defenseman turns 36 today, and celebrated with a goal 49 seconds into the final frame. After that the game flowed without a break, but also without scoring chances for either team, something that suited Avangard as it sought to close out the win. The Hawks looked to shut down play in center ice, CSKA relied on individual flair to break through but Serebryakov was seldom tested.
Late in the game, Konstantin Okulov had a couple of chances to put the game beyond reach while CSKA finished with six skaters in an unsuccessful bid to salvage a tie. It finished 2-1, with Igor Nikitin’s team beaten in regulation for the first time in seven games.

Ozolin records back-to-back shut-outs

Barys Astana 0 Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk 1 (0-1, 0-0, 0-0)

A solitary goal from German Tochilkin gave Neftekhimik a second successive shut-out victory. Yaroslav Ozolin, who recorded his first KHL blank in the 2-0 win at Ak Bars followed it up right away, making 36 saves to frustrate the home team. The visitor also handed a debut to Matvei Zaseda, recently acquired from Amur.

The visitor also demonstrated the value of taking chances. A two-on-one rush opened the home defense, Maxim Fedotov fired the puck from the boards and Nikita Khoruzhev’s redirect set up Tochilkin for a sixth-minute goal.

And that proved to be decisive. Barys created chances but could not take them. Ansar Shaikhmeddenov, Maxim Mukhametov and Max Willman all tested Ozolin in the second period, but to no avail.

And the pattern continued in the third, with the home team pressing but failing to score. On 56:18, visiting defenseman Dinar Khafizullin was assessed a slashing major, giving Barys a power play until the end of the game. During that PP the Kazakhs swapped goalie Adam Scheel for a sixth skater, but even a two-man advantage could not bring a game-saving goal. Inside, Mason Morelli’s foul cancelled out the power play, helping the Wolves bring home the verdict.

Prolific forwards fire Ufa

Lada Togliatti 2 Salavat Yulaev Ufa 5 (0-3, 1-1, 1-1)

Sheldon Rempal moved to 22 points from 11 games, Jack Rodewald and Vladislav Yefremov scored two apiece and Salavat Yulaev eased to an assured win at Lada.

That makes it five in a row for Viktor Kozlov’s team, which climbs to sixth in the Eastern Conference.

The visitor effectively finished this in the first period. Rodewald, Ufa’s leading goalscorer this season, punished an early too many men call to open the scoring in the fourth minute, assisted by Rempal. Yefremov joined him on the scoresheet in the eighth minute, and Alexander Zharovsky rounded off a good session with a third goal on 15:06. Lada rarely threatened, with just six shots at Semyon Vyazovoi in the opening stanza.

The Motormen put that right early in the second when Riley Sawchuk pulled a goal back. That brought about a change in the play. Outshot 15-6 in the first, Lada had a 15-4 advantage in the second. But Vyazovoi was not beaten again, and Yefremov’s second of the night restored the three-goal cushion for the visitor. Salavat then killed two minutes of five-on-three to add to home frustration.

In the third, the visiting power play showed how to use a two-man advantage. Midway through the session Rempal and Rodewald combined again for the fifth goal. Lada tried to make a game of it, despite the unpromising circumstances, and there was some reward when Sawchuk got his second of the game late on. But by then the result was beyond doubt.

Liska hat-trick powers Severstal win

Severstal Cherepovets 6 Dinamo Minsk 4 (3-3, 2-1, 1-0)

A high-scoring game in Cherepovets saw Severstal open a two-point lead over Lokomotiv at the top of the Western Conference.

The 6-4 verdict moved Andrei Kozyrev’s men to three wins from the last four games, while Dinamo suffered a fourth loss in five.

That solitary win came in the previous outing, when Cherepovets native Vadim Shipachyov picked up his 1,000th point in the KHL. He moved to 1,001 on today’s first power play, assisting on a goal for Andrei Stas. However, that merely cancelled out a shorthanded opener from Adam Liska as the teams traded 10th-minute tallies.

And the goals kept coming. Stas tied it up on 9:34; by 13:08 it was 3-2 for Dinamo. Liska put Severstal back ahead with his second of the game, but Vitaly Pinchuk and Sergei Kuznetsov swiftly turned that around. There was more to come in a breathless opening frame, with Kirill Tankov tying the game before the intermission.

After six goals in the first period, things slowed a little in the second. Severstal swapped goalies at the intermission, with Dmitry Shugayev replacing Vsevolod Skotnikov. Dinamo suffered on penalty kill, and Severstal built a 5-3 lead on PP markers from Ruslan Abrosimov and Liska. The Slovak center completed his hat-trick and assisted on the Abrosimov goal. Today’s four-point haul takes him to 15 (11+4) points in his last 10 games. It also chased Zach Fucale from the net, with Vasily Demchenko coming in to the Dinamo net midway through the game.

Undaunted, Dinamo continued to make a game of it. Rob Hamilton got it back to 4-5. However, by now the early goal rush had slowed and the defenses were showing what they could do. After nine goals in 34 minutes, there was just one in the remaining 26. It went to Alexander Skorenov, a Belarusian-born forward with a habit of hurting Minsk. In his last four games against Dinamo, he has 4+1.