The Continental Hockey League this season is extremely rich in very interesting scenarios, exciting matches and their unexpected outcomes. This applies even to top clubs, which were previously heavily credited with titles or at least their participation in the Gagarin Cup final. But the situation in the league has changed somewhat, it is increasingly difficult to name specific favorites, and therefore attention to KHL games is growing exponentially.
The Moscow derby between Dynamo and Spartak stands apart in this entire spectacle. The confrontation between eternal rivals and enemies always stands out among others, but in the current regular season the teams have taken their battle to a new, transcendental level. In total, they have six matches on the regular season calendar, and from game to game the opponents give the audience more and more crazy endings. They haven't had any boring meetings this season yet. The team coaches, of course, are not happy about this, but hockey is for the fans, right? For example, in early December, “Spartak” and “Dynamo” staged a real scoring feast, scoring as many as 15 goals between them. Moreover, the decisive stage for complete drama is in overtime.
It seemed that it was already impossible to surpass that meeting, but that was not the case. Since the beginning of 2024, Dynamo and Spartak have found themselves on completely different paths. The “blue and white” got into impressive shape and, even against the backdrop of the virus, achieved six confident victories in seven matches. The “red and whites” are faced not only with an epidemic of diseases, due to which the team loses players one by one almost every day, but also with a series of injuries to the leaders, which led to seven defeats in eight matches in games with the KHL leaders . By the derby with Dynamo, Alexey Zhamnov’s team also lost Pavel Poryadin, who missed the match with Ak Bars the day before, as well as their main goalscorer and scorer Nikolai Goldobin. The “red-whites” were also missing Dmitry Vishnevsky — the captain’s stripe temporarily went to Ilya Kovalchuk.
But the role of Spartak’s savior passed not to the 40-year-old veteran, but entirely to Maxim Tsyplakov. The Red-White graduate is having a phenomenal season, has already set personal performance records and, according to rumors in the media, has attracted the attention of NHL clubs. But who knew exactly how the 25-year-old forward would show himself today…
In the match with Dynamo, Tsyplakov achieved a number of achievements. For the first time in his KHL career, he scored a hat-trick, but he didn’t stop there and reached poker. Previously, in the entire history of the club in the Kontinental Hockey League, only Stefan Ruzicka scored four goals per game in the 2008/09 season. Moreover, Maxim did it the fastest in the history of the KHL: it took him just under 27 minutes from the moment of the starting throw-in.
But all the fun started right from the beginning of the game. Already in the 55th second of the match, Dmitry Rashevsky opened the scoring with his first shot on target and brought Dynamo ahead. However, less than two minutes later, Shane Prince, who returned to Spartak after illness, restored the status quo. Subsequently, five more goals were scored in the “blue and white” goal: both under Maxim Motorygin and Ilya Konovalov, who replaced the “blue and white” young goalkeeper after the third goal he missed. It was Tsyplakov who sentenced Motorygin, who after Prince’s goal scored while playing in the minority — in the second championship match in a row — as well as Michal Czajkowski, who unexpectedly found himself alone at the far post of the goal.
Subsequently, only the same Tsyplakov was spectacular at Spartak. The Spartak forward scored a double by the middle of the first period.
And at the beginning of the second 20 minutes he scored twice more. His fourth goal of the match is just something. The side of Dynamo's home arena, after a throw-out from Tchaikovsky, played for Spartak, and Tsyplakov, who was in wait for the rebound, effectively rounded the goal and sent the puck into the net. What’s interesting is also when playing in the minority. In the history of the KHL there has never been a single case where one player scored four goals in a match, two of which were in the minority.
Maxim had every chance to score a penta-trick at the end of the second period, but there was no luck with the implementation. But later, the “red-white” pupil showed himself in the power struggle. In the match with Ak Bars in Kazan, for example, he spectacularly dropped the almost 100-kilogram Nikita Lyamkin. In the derby with Dynamo, Tsyplakov painfully met the main star of the “blue and white” and the best scorer of the KHL season Nikita Gusev. This forceful move, according to all hockey rules, failed, and Maxim received a two-minute suspension for an attack in the head and neck area.
Dynamo, known for their phenomenal skill in converting power plays, shot through Dmitry Nikolaev, who came in place of the injured Patrick Ribar, as soon as Tsyplakov served his fine. And at the end of the match, the “blue and white” scored again. The final score is 6:3 in favor of Spartak, who got their second victory in 2024 and officially qualified for the playoffs. The “red-whites” have not been there since March 2022.
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