Home ice woes and next-gen goaltending

The latest week’s KHL action saw the league’s youngest ever goalie make his debut. A struggling team moves up the table at last, and a traditional powerhouse ends a long losing streak on home ice.

Runaway lead

With two months of the regular season complete, Metallurg has a whopping nine-point lead at the top of the Eastern Conference, and a four-point gap overall to CSKA. That’s despite the disruption caused by Andrei Razin’s departure as head coach. Since he was relieved of his duties – via a temporary suspension at first – interim chief Vladimir Vorobyov won five games before following his colleague to SKA. Then Yury Trubachyov suffered a shoot-out loss to Salavat Yulaev before Konstantin Shafranov was given the full-time post. Shafranov has won three from four so far; Nathan Todd’s winner in the 4-3 victory at Avtomobilist on Saturday extends his hot streak to six games (3+5).

Sochi starts moving

After being rooted to the foot of the standings for much of the season, HC Sochi is upwardly mobile at last. The Leopards have four wins from their last five, with only defending champion Lokomotiv spoiling that run. It’s lifted the team out of last place, ahead of Lada, and given some renewed energy to a club long accustomed to struggling. Star signing Nikita Gusev has been instrumental: he has an eight-game hot streak worth 10 assists.

The youngest goalie

Sochi’s loss at Lokomotiv saw Dmitry Kvartalnov send goalie Yakov Kazantsev into the game for the closing minutes of a 6-2 win. That made the netminder the youngest ever in the KHL, aged just 16 years, 355 days. The teen made it through his brief cameo without allowing a goal, getting a taste of life in the big league as well as earning a place in history. The same game also saw Kirill Yemelyanov score his first KHL goal – and he enjoyed it so much he added another soon after.

Homesickness

The Tatneft Arena in Kazan is usually something of a fortress for Ak Bars – but not this month. Anvar Gatiyatulin’s team lost six successive home games, with an aggregate score of 6-18, following a 4-1 victory over Barys on Sep. 30. The run ended on Oct. 30 with a 3-1 success against Amur thanks to goals from Denis Zernov, Grigory Denisenko and Ravil Yakupov. Now Ak Bars looks to build on that today when SKA comes to Tatarstan.

Razin’s rough ride

SKA, meanwhile, has dropped out of the playoff places in the Western Conference. A run of five straight losses cost Igor Larionov his job as head coach in St. Petersburg, but incoming boss Andrei Razin has not found an immediate solution. The new man has lost three of his first four games, all of them at home, and this week faces a tricky road trip to the Far East via Kazan. At present, SKA is ninth in the West, three points behind Dinamo Minsk. However, Razin’s men have three games in hand on the Belarusians.

Comebacks and collapses

Shanghai Dragons remain unpredictable. In successive games fans of the Chinese club saw 2-0 leads evaporate. The first ended in a 5-2 win for Barys, powered by a Tyce Thompson hat-trick. He scored two of them to wipe out Shanghai’s early 2-0 advantage on Friday. Then, on Sunday, it was the opposite story. Salavat Yulaev got up by two in the second period, but could not hold on. Two goals in the last three minutes saw the Dragons grab a 3-2 verdict thanks to Riley Sutter’s winner on 59:54.