Metallurg eases to third win over Torpedo

A second-period blitz helped Metallurg open a 3-0 lead in its Gagarin Cup second round series against Torpedo.

Four goals on eight shots puts Steelmen in command

Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod 2 Metallurg Magnitogorsk 4 (1-0, 0-4, 1-0)
Metallurg leads the series 3-0

After 20 minutes, things were looking up for Torpedo. The home team was down 2-0 in the series, but had battled its way to a 1-0 lead at the first intermission. True, it had to absorb some pressure to keep Metallurg out, but there were signs that Alexei Isakov’s men might find a toehold in this series at last.

But those hopes were blown emphatically out of the water in the second period. Metallurg’s offense clicked into gear to the tune of four unanswered goals. The visitor eased to victory, and can now complete a sweep with victory here on Wednesday.

That opening period was light on big chances. Metallurg had the first power play of the night but created little. By the 11th minute, goalies Denis Kostin and Alexander Smolin had made just five saves between them, although the Torpedo defense had more work to do to protect Kostin’s net.

The breakthrough came in the 15th minute, and it was former Metallurg man Igor Geraskin who created it. He flew down the left wing after Mikhail Naumenkov’s surge through a large expanse of open ice, then drilled the puck to the net for Alexei Kruchinin to steer it past Smolin. At last, Torpedo had something to hold onto.

However, it could not maintain a grip for long. Metallurg made a strong start to the second period, and turned the game around inside 27 minutes. From the restart, the action went without a pause until 23:38, when Andrei Kozlov mopped up a broken play to tie the scores.

Three minutes later, a mini-masterpiece had Magnitka in front. Robin Press produced a spectacular stretch pass, and Nikita Mikhailis trumped it with a beautiful bit of individual skill, dangling his way past the sprawling Sergei Boykov before rifling the puck past Kostin.

Torpedo then had a power play chance, but the shell-shocked home team could do little with it. And after Sergei Tolchinsky returned to the game, another quickfire double saw Artyom Minulin and Ruslan Iskhakov make it 4-1. Metallurg scored four goals off eight shots in the second period.

There was more encouragement for Magnitka in the identity of the scorers: three of the four had not previously found the net in this year’s playoff, with only Mikhailis on target earlier in this series. At times, the Steelmen have looked over-reliant on the impressive Tkachyov-Kantserov partnership; today showed there is plenty of secondary scoring on offer.

Torpedo responded by replacing Kostin with Dmitry Shugayev, who had previously played for Magnitka head coach Andrei Razin at Severstal. He only faced one shot in the remaining seven minutes of the middle frame, and just four more in the third period as Metallurg protected its lead and Torpedo tried to move play down the ice.

However, while the home team managed to tighten up its defense at last, it struggled to test Smolin at the other end. Vladislav Firstov thought he had reduced the deficit early in the third, but the officials immediately called it back for interference on the goalie. Later, Torpedo played six-on-four during a power play and was fortunate not to give up an empty-net goal. In the last minute, Vasily Atanasov got a consolation goal, but it was already too late to save the game – and perhaps almost too late to save the series.