Another game day of the Kontinental Hockey League playoffs ( KHL) turned out to be unexpectedly rich in high-profile events. Sensational results, plenty of fights and new intrigues of the first round – all in the material Sport.
The captain of “Salavat” was knocked down. The defeat of “Salavat Yulaev” in the first match of the series against “Traktor” left a number of questions regarding the prospects of the Ufa team. First of all, this concerns the implementation of scoring chances by Viktor Kozlov’s team. In the second meeting, the Ufa residents presented a convincing argument in their favor. “Salavat” made more than 40 shots on the “Traktor” goal, four of which were accurate. Sasha Chmielewski and Joshua Livo also distinguished themselves, the goals from whom are expected first of all.
The fans were especially impressed by several fights. First, Albert Yarullin and Daniil Alalykin sorted things out, then Mikhail Kotlyarevsky and Daniil Bashkirov organized a duel between themselves. But Charles Robinson gave the most fire, who fought with Grigory Panin and Alexei Vasilevsky. Moreover, the captain of “Salavat” was completely knocked down by the American forward of “Traktor”.
Panin had to seek help, and despite his return to the bench, he never appeared on the ice again. Robinson was punished with two disciplinary fines and two large penalties for the fight, and his blow to Panin’s head is still the subject of debate. According to many, the American acted incorrectly.
“Spartak” could not put the squeeze on “Severstal” From the confrontation between “Spartak” and “Severstal” they rightly expect productive matches. But today the teams scored only three goals in total. The first of them happened already in the 13th second, when the “red-whites” missed Kirill Pilipenko’s throw. “Spartak” was able to respond only at the beginning of the second period, when the club’s main record holder and goalscorer Nikolai Goldobin scored his first goal for the Muscovites in the KHL playoffs. Spartak had an absolute superiority over Severstal in the second 20 minutes and, in the spirit after Goldobin's goal, should have scored three times more. But the Muscovites did not have success with the implementation.
In the third period, Alexei Zhamnov's team got a chance for a five-minute majority. At this moment, Spartak was already losing, conceding an accidental goal at the end of the second 20 minutes, but did not take advantage of the excellent opportunity. The score in the series became equal – 1-1.
“Ak Bars” has become one step closer to failure. After the defeat of “Ak Bars” in the first match with “Avtomobilist”, many were expecting a transformation of the Kazan team due to the long-awaited return of Dmitry Yashkin to the lineup. However, the comeback of one of the main KHL stars did not help the team of Zinetula Bilyaletdinov. The Kazan team also failed in the second meeting with Avtomobilist, conceding four unanswered goals. Ak Bars will go to Yekaterinburg in an extremely unenviable position. The fight between Nikita Lyamkin and Semyon Kizimov did not lead the Kazan team to a winning result either.
Another negative point for Bilyaletdinov’s team was the behavior of Alexander Radulov. At the end of the first period, the star forward of Ak Bars rudely met Kirill Vorobyov with a forceful move. The judges regarded this hit as an attack in the head and neck area and removed Radulov until the end of the match.
“Lokomotiv showed its teeth to CSKA” The confrontations between “Lokomotiv” and CSKA in the playoffs have long been talked about as if the “railroad workers” are psychologically unstable, do not have the necessary courage, and therefore give them series after series. A new battle between two old friends has given rise to a new batch of similar statements. Still, 0:4 in the first match is too much.
In the second match, Loko showed that it was actually capable of providing adequate resistance to the Muscovites. And both in terms of hockey and fighting. Igor Nikitin's team took revenge and equalized the series score thanks to goals from Alexander Elesin and Denis Alekseev within a few minutes of each other, which brought the Yaroslavl team a strong-willed victory. At the same time, the same Elesin and Daniil Tesanov showed their strength. The first managed to fight with Andrei Svetlakov and Maxim Mamin during the meeting, while the second had a fist fight with Darren Dietz at the end of the meeting.
The best club of the regular season began the pursuit of gold with a victory. Dynamo Moscow was supposed to start in the new Gagarin Cup the day before, but due to logistical difficulties, their series with Dynamo Minsk had to be postponed to other dates. But thanks to this, Alexei Kudashov’s team received an extra day for preparation, which was very useful after the difficult finish of the regular season.
Dmitry Kvartalnov and his Dynamo Minsk are known for extremely difficult and sometimes even unpleasant hockey in relation to their rivals. The Muscovites had to frankly endure in the first part of the meeting, although they managed to open the scoring in the second minute. The Minsk residents, through pressure, quickly restored the status quo and also achieved the cancellation of the Muscovites' second goal. As a result, the teams' ability to remain vigilant and achieve what they wanted came to the fore. Kudashov’s team succeeded in this. At the end of the regular season, Dynamo Moscow had already pulled out a number of difficult matches when everything was decided in the end. They pulled off the same trick today, scoring three times in the last ten minutes of regulation time.
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