Jakub Stepanek European Player of the Month

The weekend before Christmas Jakub Stepanek played Channel One Cup in Moscow with the Czech national team and was stats-wise the best goaltender of the cup before well known goalies such as Vasily Koshechkin and Stefan Liv. He guarded the Czech net in all three games and allowed 6 goals to lead the Czechs to a second place of the prestigious tournament.

In the first game when Finland was beaten 3-2 in a penalty shoot-out in Tapiola Arena, Stepanek made 35 saves. Against the strong Russian team Czech Republic lost 3-1 and Stepanek made 29 saves. In the last game against Sweden Stepanek was beaten only once and he made 28 saves.

Spengler Cup was played in Vaillant Arena in Davos, Switzerland during the last week of the year and SKA St. Petersburg with Stepanek in the net won all four games to win the cup.

In the group stage Geneve-Servette was first beaten 3-1 in a game where Stepanek rested and Maksim Sokolov guarded the SKA net. Stepanek was back in the net for the second game against Sparta Praha which ended with a 4-1 win and 30 saves.

SKA faced Geneve-Servette again in the semi final. Sokolov started the game in the SKA net but allowed three goals in the first period so Stepanek replaced him for the second. In the two periods +2:37 of overtime Stepanek was on the ice he kept the net clean and made 20 saves. SKA won 4-3 and qualified for the final against Team Canada.

The final was won 4-3 but Team Canada outshot SKA 38-25 and Stepanek made 35 saves.

In the KHL, SKA played only 6 games in December. The month started great for Stepanek who made 21 saves to earn a shutout against Yugra on the 1st. Two days later Barys was beaten 4-2 and Stepanek made 27 saves. On the seventh Stepanek won his third game of the month when he saved 28 shots against Lokomotiv in the 4-2 win.

On the 10th SKA lost 5-4 (OT) to Atlant but in that game Evgeny Nabokov guarded the net. On the 12th, in the last game before the league break, SKA lost 5-2 to Torpedo. Nabokov started that game also but after a not so good start Stepanek replaced him.

The last league game of the year for SKA was played on the 23rd when Spartak was beaten 5-1 and Stepanek made 35 saves.

Jakub Stepanek was born in June 1986 in Vsetin, Czechoslovakia. After five seasons with Vitkovice in the Czech Extraliga he moved to KHL and SKA St. Petersburg for this season. In 18 league games Stepanek has a 2.14 average and a saves percentage of .925.

In the World Championship 2009 Stepanek watched the Czech net for 6 games of 7. He was also selected as a backup for the Olympics and World Championship 2010 but never got any time on the ice.
SKA are currently ranked 8th in the KHL but with all the stars on the team they can be expected to go far in the playoffs.

 

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