Torpedo, Avangard end regular season with wins. March 19 round-up
The penultimate day of the regular season saw two games, and confirmed the top four in the Western Conference. Severstal’s loss at home to Avangard means it will finish third and Dinamo Minsk second. Lokomotiv was already assured of top spot, with CSKA locked into fourth. Thursday’s other action brought a 5-3 win for Torpedo at home to Amur.
Vinogradov paces Torpedo triumph
Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod 5 Amur Khabarovsk 3 (1-1, 2-1, 2-1)
Two goals from leading scorer Yegor Vinogradov saw Torpedo end its regular season with a win. Vinogradov, 22, finishes with 54 (23+31) points from 67 games.
The home team needed a boost going into the playoffs after dropping its previous three games. And after a sticky start, it proved too good for Amur, which ends its season on 60 points after back-to-back defeats in its final road games.
The visitor got in front with a shorthanded goal in the eighth minute. Kirill Slepets was the scorer. But Torpedo tied it up through Anton Sizov and had a slight advantage on the balance of first-period play. That was helped by three power plays, although Amur’s PK did a more than solid job in repelling the home PP.
Early in the second period, Kirill Petkov restored the Tigers’ lead. However, it wasn’t long before Vinogradov’s first of the evening tied it up. And midway through the game, Sergei Goncharuk put Torpedo in front for the first time.
Amur’s Yaroslav Dyblenko ended the middle frame with a tripping minor, and that power play brought Vinogradov’s second of the game at the start of the final stanza. Then, just as another power play elapsed, Shane Prince added a fifth for the home team to take the game away from the Tigers. There was still time for a consolation effort from Danil Yurtaikin, but the game was long gone by then.
Today’s victory lifts Torpedo to fifth, and a potential first-round playoff meeting with CSKA. However, Alexei Isakov’s team could be overtaken by Dynamo Moscow and / or SKA depending on tomorrow’s results.
Late flurry gives Avangard the verdict
Severstal Cherepovets 2 Avangard Omsk 5 (1-1, 1-0, 0-4)
Three goals in the last eight minutes saw Avangard run away with this game – but for much of the encounter, this was a close fought battle. Severstal led twice, only to fall away in the final stages.
The home team made the better start to the game and deservedly took the lead on a power play from Yanni Kaldis in the ninth minute. Severstal moved the puck neatly around the Avangard zone before Nikolai Chebykin got it back to Kaldis. He stepped in from the blue line and launched a wrister into the top corner as Danil Aimurzin screened Andrei Mishurov in the visitor’s net.
Severstal had chances to extend that lead, but did not take them and was punished just before the intermission. Avangard won possession in the corner and Mikhail Kotlyarevsky followed up with a shot that Konstantin Shostak could not hold. The puck dropped kindly for Vasily Ponomaryov to tie the game.
The second period had much in common with the first. Once again, Severstal had the better of the play; once again, there was a goal right before the hooter. This time it went to Mikhail Ilyin for the home team, and that was all that separated the teams going into the third period.
However, that final frame saw Avangard transform its game. After 18 shots through 40 minutes, the Hawks fired in 11 in the last 20 and found the net with
four of them. A shoot-on-sight policy brought its rewards, starting with Mike McLeod’s equalizer in the 46th minute. Then came two quick goals as Semyon Chistyakov and Konstantin Okulov took the game away from Severstal. Alexander Volkov’s empty-netter finished the job.
Avangard finishes the regular season with four successive wins, reaching 99 points to take second place in the Eastern Conference. The Hawks begin their playoff campaign at home to Neftekhimik. Severstal ends on 86 points, good for third place in the West. The Lynx begin their post season at home to one of Dynamo Moscow, Torpedo or SKA.
