Hawks, Torpedo both rise to third. November 7 round-up

An overtime win over Sibir saw Avangard move up to third place in the Eastern Conference despite letting a 3-1 lead slip in the third period. In Nizhny Novgorod, Torpedo halted Dynamo’s three-game winning streak with a 4-3 verdict and moved to third place in the West.

McLeod pots OT winner

Avangard Omsk 4 Sibir Novosibirsk 3 OT (1-0, 2-1, 0-2, 1-0)

The Hawks climb to third in the Eastern Conference after winning Saturday’s Siberian derby. An overtime goal from Mike McLeod secured the win, thwarting a fightback from 1-3 by the visitor.

Avangard grabbed an early goal when Max Lajoie’s shot dropped kindly for Andrew Poturalski on the slot. Later, Sibir had to kill a penalty before getting a chance to show off its own power play. The visitor played four on three, then five on three, and Alexander Yaremchuk somehow missed an open goal when he seemed certain to tie the scores.

Back at full strength, Avangard resumed its own attacking play with chances for Yegor Afanasyev and Dmitry Rashevsky before the intermission.

That pressure carried on after the break and the home team soon doubled its lead. McLeod and Alexander Volkov could not convert a two-on-one rush, but Joseph Cecconi followed up to find the open net. Sibir’s bench challenged the play, claiming the net was off its moorings, but the video review backed the on-ice decision and the visitor took a bench minor for delaying the game.

After killing that penalty, Sibir managed to pull a goal back when Stepan Nikulin stepped out of the box to skate clear and beat Nikita Serebryakov. But instead of building on that breakthrough, the visit continued to struggle in the middle frame. After a brief flurry of pressure on Serebryakov’s net, Avangard resumed control and increased its lead on a power play goal from Semyon Chisyakov in the 39th minute.

But the third period brought a turnaround. Sibir survived some early pressure, with Artyom Ilyenko, Rashevsky and Josh Leivo going close. After that, the visitor began to flex, and penalty trouble for Avangard opened a way back into the game. A five-on-three PP didn’t produce a goal, but Yegor Korshkov struck with a one-man advantage. That was merely the start of the drama: Sibir tied the game with 24 seconds on the clock thanks to Semyon Koshelev, taking the action into overtime.

But the visitor could not complete its recovery, and a delayed penalty helped McLeod secure the win for Avangard.

Dynamo leaves it too late at Torpedo

Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod 4 Dynamo Moscow 3 (2-0, 1-1, 1-2)

After three successive wins, Dynamo suffered defeat at Torpedo. The home team made it three victories from four and moved into the top three in the Western Conference.

There wasn’t a lot of goalmouth action in the first period, with the teams sharing just 10 shots on goal between them. But while the visiting offense was almost silent, the home team proved clinical with the chances it created.

Torpedo scored twice off seven shots in the opening frame. First, a face-off win presented Sergei Goncharuk with the chance to rifle home a shot from the top of the circle in the ninth minute.

Three minutes later, Pavel Kraskovsky doubled the lead. Goalie Maxim Motorygin parried a point shot from Daniil Seroukh, and the rebound fell for the former Lokomotiv forward to score from the slot.

Dynamo had to wait until the 14th minute to get a shot at Denis Kostin, and that offered little threat for the home goalie. However, the visitor managed to find a way back into the game at the start of the second period. Dmitry Zugan, who scored twice in Thursday’s win at Shanghai Dragons, was on target again. He converted a feed from Artyom Shvets-Rogovoi, highlighting his bright start to life in the KHL.

But it wasn’t long before Torpedo added to its lead. Matvei Polyakov got possession in center ice and skated away to outwit Novikov and beat Motorygin for a third time.

The visitor struggled to generate offense throughout the first two periods, but managed to raise more of a threat in the third. There wasn’t exactly a procession of scoring chances in front of Kostin’s net. But the visitor managed to reduce the deficit in the 49th minute thanks to Artyom Bondar’s second goal of the season. The 20-year-old scored with only the third shot on goal in the final stanza, with Motorygin still awaiting his first test at the other end.

Indeed, Motorygin would not face a shot in the third period. Torpedo had one effort on goal, and it came after the visiting netminder made way for a sixth skater. Nikta Shavin found the empty net, and made the game more or less safe in the 58th minute. There was still time for a Dynamo riposte, with former Torpedo man Maxim Letunov making it a one-goal game 60 seconds before the hooter. But that was the end of the scoring as Torpedo closed out a tighter win than seemed likely at the second intermission.