Metallurg beats host in Minsk, Sochi beaten in first game

Day three of the Minsk Cup saw Metallurg book its place in the gold-medal game with a 6-3 victory over Dinamo. Sochi made a belated start to its campaign, but fell to a 0-4 loss against Sibir. In Saturday’s solitary warm-up game, SKA won 3-1 at home to Avtomobilist.

Minsk Cup

HC Sochi 0 Sibir Novosibirsk 4 (0-0, 0-1, 0-3)

Sochi belatedly got its Minsk Cup campaign underway, but suffered a heavy loss to Sibir in its opening game of the summer. Yaroslav Lyuzenkov named a stronger team than the one that fell to Admiral in the tournament opener on Thursday as the Siberians bounced back impressively.

There was still no debut for Evgeny Kuznetsov, the highest profile of Sibir’s summer signings. But today’s game saw the likes of Taylor Beck and Darren Dietz in action, while Anton Krasotkin returned in goal.

Krasotkin did well to absorb some first period pressure as the game remained goalless through 20 minutes. But Sibir got in front at the start of the second. Pavel Tyutnev was the scoring, assisted by Sergei Popov, who was third in scoring for Sochi last season.

The Leopards responded well after going behind and had the better of the second period but could not find a way past Krasotkin. That proved costly: Mikhail Abramov beat Ivan Bocharov for the second time at the beginning of the final frame before Arkhip Nekolenko padded the lead. Alexander Mirzabalayev continued his promising pre-season form with an empty net goal to make the final score 4-0. 

Dinamo Minsk 3 Metallurg Magnitogorsk 6 (0-0, 2-2, 1-4)

Metallurg booked its place in the Minsk Cup final with victory over tournament host Dinamo. For the second game running under new head coach Sergei Brylin, the Belarusians were involved in a high-scoring clash. But unlike the 7-5 success over Shanghai Dragons, today ended in defeat.

After a goalless first period, Dinamo opened a 2-0 lead in the second. First, Rhett Gardner converted a power play after Ruslan Iskhakov’s foul. Five minutes later, Bogdan Belkin doubled the advantage. But late in the frame, Metallurg hit back – and the fightback began with a player familiar to Dinamo fans. Forward Valentin Demchenko, 24, grew up in Belarus and made his KHL debut for Minsk in 2022. Today he got Magnitka on the board, and two minutes later his new club drew level on a goal from Nikita Mikhailis.

At the start of the third, a five-on-three power play helped Nathan Todd put the Steelmen up for the first time in the game. Nikolai Salygo soon tied it up at 3-3, but that was as good as it got for the home team. Metallurg continued to press and took control in the closing stages: Dmitry Silantyev made it 4-3 on 54:01 and there was time for more goals from Stepan Starkov and Todd’s second of the night to seal a 6-3 scoreline.

Warm-up game

SKA St. Petersburg 3 Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg 1 (1-0, 0-0, 2-1)

Vasily Glotov celebrated his return to SKA with two goals to clinch victory in St. Petersburg’s first game of the summer. Glotov signed a five-year contract with Igor Larionov’s team in the off season and showed just why with a game-winning performance against Avtomobilist.

The Motormen secured the high-profile signing of Slovak center Adam Ruzicka last week, but he was not involved in Alexei Kudashov’s first game as Avto head coach.

SKA’s new Swedish forward, Linus Weissbach, was in action, and he assisted on both of Glotov’s goals. The first came after 16 minutes: Weissbach took a tumble but still managed to get a pass off for Glotov to make it 1-0 at the first intermission.

That goal was all that separated the teams until early in the third. Then Ilya Karpukhin made his impression on the game. First, the former SKA defenseman did well, tying the scores against his former club in the 46th minute. But a couple of minutes later his error enabled Rocco Grimaldi to restore SKA’s lead. And in the final minute, Weissbach dished off a feed for Glotov to score into an empty net and seal the win. The teams are due to meet again tomorrow.